David Azrieli

As a teen he fled Poland to escape the Holocaust, which would claim the lives of his parents as well as his brother and sister. After fighting in Israel’s War of Independence, Azrieli moved to Montreal to start what would become a vast real estate empire with interests in Canada, the U.S. and Israel. His publicly traded realty company, the Azrieli Group, was the largest IPO in the history of the Tel Aviv exchange when it commenced trading in 2010. After Azrieli passed away in July 2014 at the age of 92, Canpro Investments—the management company that controlled his $800 million in Canadian and U.S. real estate assets—was transferred to his foundation. Meanwhile, his daughters, Sharon, Naomi and Danna, inherited his controlling stake in the Azrieli Group. Fresh off of leading the largest private IPO in Israel's history, David Azrieli continues to develop his North American and Israeli real estate empire, which he started years ago by building four homes in a Montreal suburb. The Azrieli Group, which went public in June 2010 and is controlled by Azrieli and his family, continues to snap up or construct large Israeli office buildings and shopping malls. The family patriarch is also expanding his North American real estate holdings, purchasing a Houston office building leased to Dow Chemical Co. for $107 million in early 2012. Azrieli, an avid art collector, maintains a large Jewish art collection, some of which has been displayed at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and the Haifa Museum of Art. Master of Science, U of Carleton, Ottawa; Bachelor of Arts / Science, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology