Card Guard appointed new Vice President R&D

Mr. Yair Tal was promoted to the position of Vice President R&D at Card Guard Group level effective as at the end of December 2008. Since July 2008, he had already served as Vice President R&D at the Israeli subsidiary Card Guard Scientific Survival, Ltd. After a thorough assessment of the ongoing R&D work, clear priorities and projects were defined in order to align the R&D efforts more closely with the Group’s core product requirements in its monitoring business. The implementation of a concise R&D strategy focusing on Card Guard’s market leading LifeStar ACT (Ambulatory Cardiac Telemetry) system, as well as additional devices complementing the core service offering, will increase the overall R&D performance whilst reducing R&D costs. The sharpened focus has already resulted in the establishment of a streamlined R&D team in Israel in 2009.

Mr. Tal has over 15 years of multidisciplinary experience in the design and management of R&D projects, specializing in hardware, software and very-large-scale systems integration. He has a proven and solid track record in efficiently managing R&D budgets and multinational design teams delivering high performance and high quality silicon and embedded products. Prior to joining Card Guard Mr. Tal held senior positions at Resolute Networks, Gilat Satellite Networks and LSI.

At Resolute Networks Yair Tal served as Vice President R&D. Resolute Networks is a wholly owned subsidiary of BATM Advanced Communications (LSE Ticker Symbol: BVC) and its international headquarters are located in Israel. The company provides sub-system and OEM solutions for Circuit Emulation Services (CES) applications which are optimized to support high performance converged telecommunication services. At Gilat Satellite Systems (NASDAQ Ticker Symbol: GILT) Mr. Tal worked as a Design Manager. Gilat is headquartered in Israel and is designing, developing and marketing innovative satellite and hybrid networking products, services and solutions to operators in 85 countries. LSI (NYSE Ticker symbol: LSI), where Yair Tal held the position of design lead, is located in Milpitas, California. The company manufactures semiconductors, storage and networking solutions. Mr. Tal holds an MBA from the Technion, Haifa and a B.Sc.EE from Tel Aviv University.

“Yair Tal has a lot of experience and competence in the domain of very-large-scale integration work. He will ensure that we can keep and enhance our technological leadership in medical monitoring devices and their integration into new healthcare platforms,” stated Yacov Geva, Chairman and CEO of Card Guard AG. Mr. Tal added: “I am excited to be part of the team which will enhance Card Guard’s leading position at the forefront of innovation.”