'Leading the Way' Podcast: Raanan Horowitz, CEO of Elbit Systems of America

A fascinating company that started in 1993 with just 10 people, one customer and a vision.  Learn how CEO, Raanan Horowitz, took that vision, grew it into a $1 billion organization with over 2,000 employees today and how they’ve become a leader in global technology-based applications that protect and save lives.

Raanan shares with us their key focus on their main customer--the United State armed forces—and how they support, equip, trust, and hire them to lead teams within their own organization. We discuss the differences, challenges, and benefits of a “command and control” military style of leadership and how integrating that into a corporate “collaborative and coaching” leadership environment has built the foundation for their success. You’ll hear an eye-opening perspective on hiring veterans and how companies can effectively help them transition into the workplace.

Surveillance that protects our borders, military helmet display systems, medical instrumentation, and commercial aviation vision systems are just a few examples of the innovation taking place at Elbit Systems of America. In this empowering podcast, you learn how encouraging curiosity and understanding the needs of the customer have led to their intensely innovative yet family-oriented culture. 

Key Soundbites 

• On hiring veterans – “The transition from military into the business can be difficult. Just because an employee might have ‘ranks,’ it requires leadership to work with them in providing training, coaching on how to do things, and constant feedback for the first year or two.”  
• On innovation – “Execution is key. The recognition that you can’t get it right the first time, it’s ok to do some trial-and-error and get feedback. Getting to really good solutions is like a marathon; it’s not a sprint, you can’t do it at one time, you have to do it step-by-step, learn the lessons, try, make mistakes, fix, and then you come up with something really good.”  
• On collaboration – “We have put a program together called ILT (Innovative Leadership Teams) where we put people at the beginning of their career from different parts of the company, different functions, different businesses together so that they get to know each other, work together on a regular basis, take on specific problems to better understand the business.”  
• On leadership – “You have to earn trust, understand your business, being strategic and dive into more of the lower level details to get a sense of what’s happening.”  
• On customer focus – “The linkage to the customer is extremely important. We get close to the users and understand how our equipment is being used. We have constant working groups on how to improve our products, to understand their needs and work to support their problems.”   

About Leading the Way 

Leading the Way is a weekly radio show and podcast series that highlights influential business leaders and leading people practices from i4cp. Co-hosted by Emmy award-winning television anchor and radio host, Scott Murray, and i4cp’s Angel Carlton, the show features interviews with respected business leaders from the world of business, sports, entertainment, healthcare and philanthropy.  

The show airs live every Sunday at 4 pm CT on KLIF 570 in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, the global audience is invited to listen live on www.klif.com  and the weekly podcast debuts on iTunes or Google Play and the i4cp website the following week.