End to the management deadlock at the railway? Two new candidates for the board of directors
The state has notified the Supreme Court that the appointments committee will convene to discuss two female candidates for external director positions at Israel Railways. This move aims to resolve the unprecedented management crisis within the company.
A development in the petition by Israel Railways to the Supreme Court against Minister of Transport Miri Regev and Minister of Regional Cooperation David Amsalem, demanding to staff the incomplete board of directors: the state notified the court that the appointments committee for government companies, chaired by retired judge Shulamit Dotan, will convene next week to discuss the candidacies of two women for the positions of external directors.
It has become known to Calcalist that the candidates are Prof. Chen Cohen from Ben-Gurion University, an economist with an academic specialization in game theory, who served as a consultant to the Energix group until 2023, and Dafna Ein-Dor, former director of the economics department at the Ministry of Transport, who previously served as a director on behalf of the state at Ayalon Highways, and currently serves as an external director at the insurance company HaPool.
According to an update notice filed today by the state to the Supreme Court, "the urgency of appointing external directors to the railway's board of directors is known and clear." A meeting of the Dotan committee is scheduled for September 6. The state committed to the Supreme Court to provide an update on the progress of the appointment process by September 7.
The notice comes against the backdrop of an unprecedented management vacuum at the top of Israel Railways. Earlier this month, the company appealed to the Supreme Court with a demand to complete the appointments without delay, after the board of directors was left without external directors and without a director possessing accounting and financial expertise, as required by law.
The corporate deadlock was created due to the end of the terms of three directors. Two of them, retired judge Sarah Frisch and Shulamit Geller, resigned last July in protest against the approval of the appointment of the VP of Passengers, Yaakov Marciano, as acting CEO. This appointment was later rejected by the Dotan committee due to a lack of the required experience.
In the petition, Israel Railways claimed that the shortage of directors prevents it from legally establishing the statutory board committees – primarily the committee for reviewing financial reports. The management paralysis is occurring at a critical time:
"The railway has been operating without a permanent CEO since the departure of Shiko Zana in August 2025, and is dealing with a wave of departures of many senior officials."
All this, at a time when the company is required to manage complex national infrastructure projects and handle numerous delays and operational malfunctions. Now, it seems that the upcoming convening of the Dotan committee to examine the two new candidates may be a first step on the way to resolving the crisis.
