Dr. Judith Richter
- Founder and Chief Executive Officer
- Medinol Ltd.
- Founder and Chairwoman
- The NIR School of the Heart
- Israel
Summary:
2021 Global Business & Interfaith Peace Award: In the Holy Lands, differing religious, cultural, and historical claims are connected to ongoing conflicts. In response, Medinol CEO Dr. Judith Richter founded the NIR School of the Heart to help high school students not only understand cardio-vascular career opportunities but also connect the hearts of people from different cultural, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. Dr. Richter helps students build bridges across cultures through the process of learning. As one of the graduates summed up the experience, The NIR School of the Heart “will make the whole Middle East a better place.” The program has become widely popular and currently has 826 graduates who are functioning as ambassadors for peace, out of which 225 are also pursuing careers in medical-related professions.
Nominated by:
- Efi Haber
- Senior Vice President, HR and Infrastructure
- Medinol / NIR School of the Heart
Biography
Dr. Richter is an accomplished entrepreneur and among Israel’s most distinguished business leaders. In 1993, Dr. Richter co-founded Medinol, a global medical device company that acquired a significant international position in the Interventional Cardiology and stenting industry. She has served as the company’s Chief Executive Officer since its founding. She is also a co-founder of Medcon (acquired by McKassen), Microtech Medical Technologies and Valve Medical.
Dr. Judith Richter’s extensive business experience was preceded by a career in the academia. She served as a faculty member at Tel Aviv University Graduate School of Business, where she specialized in Corporate Strategy and Organizational Behavior. Dr. Richter served as a member of the Executive Committee of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem for 10 years. Today she serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and was nominated to the board of Tel-Aviv University.
In recognition for her exceptional contribution to Israel’s economic, industrial and technological development, Dr. Richter was awarded the Ramniceanu Prize in Economics by Tel-Aviv University. She was also the recipient of an Honorary Fellow Distinction from the Hebrew University. Recently she was named an Honorary Fellow of the Academic Institute Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, in 2018. Dr. Richter has served on the boards of several leading industrial companies, including Bezeq and Mobileye (the largest acquisition by Intel recently).
Dr. Judith Richter is engaged in a variety of NGO activities in the arts and humanities, including: founding and sponsoring The Richter Quartet of the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra, sponsoring the Israeli Women’s National Volleyball Team, nurturing holocaust survivors living in Jerusalem and supporting the youth Israeli Scouts, for which she was awarded an Honorary Scout. In the summer of 1998, Dr. Judith Richter realized her vision when she founded the NIR School of the Heart, bright ray of hope in a region where prejudice and violence are present in the hearts of too many people. The NIR School is a unique academic and social program, that assembles teenagers from different backgrounds to learn the basics of cardiology. Despite times of great tension in the region, the NIR School has operated continuously, and today is proud to have more than 800 graduates, and more than 25% of these graduates are pursuing careers as physicians or other medical-related professions. A graduate of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Dr. Richter holds a PhD from Boston University. She is married to Dr. Jacob (Kobi) Richter and a proud mother of three children.