ESRA Magazine
ESRAmagazine
ESRAmagazine categories

Mike Rubin Celebrates His 90th

Mike Rubin with Shimon Peres
General Manager of the VISA credit card company

 Mike Rubin, my husband, was born in Boston where the Rubin family lived. His parents later moved to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where Mike and his brother went to Junior School. When their mother died ‒ Mike was fourteen years old ‒ they moved back to Boston and Mike went to the Boston Latin High School, the oldest in the States, and in the afternoon he studied at a Hebrew teachers' seminar.

When Mike turned 90 in January 2020, it made me think of his over 70 years in Israel.

He came with US Machal in 1948, then returned to the States and made aliyah in 1951. That was when I met him, in Jerusalem. At that time Mike worked in a shoe factory and then as a guide for the first Israel Bonds visitors.

In 1953, Mike went to England to study Business Management, or as it was called then Efficiency. When he returned at the age of 23, he opened the Institute of Labor Productivity and Manufacture in Jerusalem.

In 1964, whilst working at Bank Leumi in their office (he was recruited from a consultancy firm and stayed for 30 years), he suggested that the bank import a computer. It took up an entire room and was the first commercial computer in Israel (the other two computers were at the Weizmann Institute and the Ministry of Defense). He was sent to London, but the bank bought IBM from the States (Mike couldn't get into the States).

In 1972, Mike was a consultant at the Bank of the Shah in Teheran. He went often on business to Iran, but bought pine nuts, not carpets.

In 1978, as Marketing Manager at Bank Leumi, Mike proposed setting up a credit card operation and three years later he became General Manager of the VISA credit card operation at the bank. He later became a member of the International Board of VISA Credit Cards. Being a native English speaker was a great advantage and meant he could represent Israel for the members from other countries. In 1995, he was asked to come to London to help write the history of international VISA, as he was at the inception in Israel.

At Bank Leumi, he also set up and managed the work study department and the operation research department, and set up and managed the regional and later marketing division.Enter your text here ...

 

Comments

No comments made yet. Be the first to submit a comment
Guest
Friday, 29 March 2024

Captcha Image