Orna Berry

After graduating, Berry began working at System Development Corporation, later Burroughs and Unisys. It was here that she began her work in Local area networking (LAN). She decided to return to Israel in 1987 to work for the IBM Haifa Research Laboratory where she was involved with hardware simulations on different Intel chip architectures. In 1989, she joined Fibronics and led projects relating to bridging Token Ring and FDDI LANs.[13]

In 1993, Berry co-founded Ornet Data Communication Technologies, which developed scalable and efficient Ethernet switches.[14] While fundraising for Ornet, Berry served as a technical manager of an industrial project at Elbit Systems, and consulted for Intel. In September 1995, Ornet was acquired by Siemens.[15] This was the first acquisition of an Israeli start-up by a European conglomerate.[16]

In late 1996, Berry joined the government. She was officially nominated as the chief scientist and director of the Industrial Research and Development Administration in January 1997. She was the first, and as of 2019, is still the only woman to hold this post.[2]

While serving in this office, she was the chairperson of the BIRD Foundation[17] which helps foster relationships between US and Israeli companies focused on R&D. She negotiated the Israeli government's participation in the European Fifth Framework Program for R&D, and chaired ISERD, the governmental organization responsible for the country's participation in the program.[18] She also chaired the joint R&D funds with Canada, the UK, South Korea, and Singapore.

Berry took part in the Brodet Committee (2007)[19] and the Tishler Committee (2012)[20] (2012), which were both founded to examine the Israeli defense budget and its management. Beginning in 2018, she led national science and technology initiatives in the quantum and artificial intelligence domains.[21][22][23]

After returning to the private sector, Berry joined Gemini Israel Ventures[24] as a venture partner, a role which she held from 2000 to 2010.[25] As part of this role, she chaired companies including: Lambda Crossing, which manufactured optical components;[26] Riverhead Networks, a DDoS mitigation company which was acquired by Cisco in March 2004;[27] PrimeSense, a sensor and 3D capturing technology company which was acquired by Apple in 2013;[28][29] and Radware, a communication company.[30] She also served as director of Poalim Capital Markets[31] and publicly traded companies including Aladdin Knowledge Systems,[32] Alvarion,[33] and Commtouch.[34]

In late 2006, Berry was elected chairperson of the Israeli Venture Capital Funds Association (IVA),[35] where she served for 3 years.[36] In 2008, she joined a project to invest in Israeli pre-seed startups.[37]

In 2010, Berry joined EMC Corporation as vice president and general manager of the company's centers of excellence in Israel.[38] She was subsequently promoted to corporate vice president of innovation.[39] As part of her role at EMC, Berry led the foundation of the company's new R&D center in Beer Sheva,[40] where EMC became the first company to inhabit the Beer Sheva high tech park in July 2013.[41][42] Berry stayed with the company following the Dell-EMC merger in 2016 until she stepped down from her role in 2018[43] to return to public service.

Berry returned to the private sector in October 2021 when she was appointed director of technology in the office of the CTO at Google Cloud.[4][5]

Berry's involvement in the academic, public and business sectors are intertwined with volunteer activities which are based on her stated goal to harness information technology (IT) for empowering knowledge and other research areas, and to create social progress and economic growth among the local Israeli community and the international community in the U.S. and Europe.

Among her voluntary activities, Berry served as a member of the board of directors of the Kav Mashve Association,[44] a non-profit organization for promoting Arab Academics employment based on their academic background and skills, a member of the board of directors of BG Negev Technologies, a member of the patents and intellectual property policy committees at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev,[45] and she still serves as member of the executive committee of Ben Gurion University[46] and board member of Ramot, the technology transfer company of Tel Aviv University,[47] and TAU Ventures.[48]

Berry was a member of the WIR (Women in Industrial Research) expert group which presented findings to The European Commission.[49] She was also a member of the EURAB Research Council,[50] where she replaced Professor Ruth Arnon as a member and contributed to studies on the expansion of competitiveness and growth as a result of extending the use of science and technology among other topics.

Berry was a member of the research team of the Association for Computing Machinery.[51]

Since 2000, Berry has volunteered to promote education, employment equality, social inclusion and welfare in Israel and around the world, along with promoting Israel's position in the world.

From 2009 to 2017, Berry was the chairperson of the Israel, Australia, New Zealand and Oceania Chamber of Commerce (IACC).[52]

From 2010 to 2017, she served as the chair of the executive committee of the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yafo,[53] where she also served on the board of trustees.[54]