RON WERBER
A brief professional profile לגרסה בשפה העברית
For three decades, until his retirement in 2020, Ron Werber served as a strategic consultant for scores of parliamentary, presidential, municipal, referendum and European Parliament campaigns, in Europe, Africa and Israel. Among his many clients over the years were also the Prime Minister of Romania Adrian Nastase and the President of Romania Ion Iliescu, the Prime Minister of Hungary Péter Medgyessy, the Prime Minister of Lithuania Algirdas Brazauskas, the Prime Minister of Romania Victor Ponta, the Vice President of Kenya Kalonzo Musyoka , and many other district presidents, mayors and party leaders.
In addition, Werber held unique comprehensive workshops in the various countries, which trained leaders and grassroots activists, for effective planning and management of advocacy and election campaigns, at both the community and national levels. These workshops included voters’ mobilization, election day management, wise use of limited resources, construction and efficient management of relevant databases, opposition research, effective public and media appearances of candidates and leaders, and more. Werber also advised for many years factions in the European Parliament in Brussels, and maintained close contacts with commissioners of the European Union.
While working internationally, Werber was also active in Israel, mainly in Pro-Bono work for civic society groups. That included the municipal election campaign of "A City for All" & Dov Hanin in Tel Aviv, the fight against the "Wisconsin Plan" in the Knesset, the establishment of a "Civil Action Forum" which advocated an increase of the public's share in the profits from gas discoveries off Israel’s coastline and natural resources in general ("the first Sheshinsky Law"), the fight against monopolies and cartels and many other social and environmental advocacy campaigns.
Prior to that, in the early 1980s, Werber was instrumental in the foundation of Telem, the Movement for Zionist Fulfillment, by the late Jewish Agency board member Uri Gordon and served as the movement's emissary in North America. In 1988, he voluntarily coordinated the political activities of the late Lova Eliav after his return to the Labor Party.
After the Labor Party's defeat in the municipal and the general elections of 1988, Ron Werber was recruited by the newly elected Labor Party’s secretary General, Micha harish, to manage the party's information and advertising division. Between the years 1989-1992, Werber was member in the small team of professionals, led by Harish and managed by the late Yuval Frenkel, who, in the following three years, rebuilt the infrastructure of the Labor Party's branches nationwide, led the largest ever membership drive campaign (1990-1991), implemented the marketing and management of the first ever party primaries in Israel (1991-1992), and supervised the renewal of the labor's grassroots outreach network throughout the country – all which led to the June 1992 national elections victory and the election of the late Yitzhak Rabin to the position of Prime Minister of Israel. In 1994, Werber together with his partner at the time, Yariv Ben-Eliezer, managed the victorious campaign of Haim Ramon for the leadership of the Histadrut National Federation of Trade Unions.
In the midst of the 1996 general election, a few months after Rabin's assassination, Werber was asked to assist the Labor Party's campaign, but refused since the strategy of "low profile" was established, and it was decided not to mention "excessively" in the campaign the Rabin’s assassination, which happened only a few months earlier, and not to allow intensive street actions in order "to keep a low profile" campaign. Immediately afterwards, in July 1996, Werber met the American consultants team headed by Richard (Dick) Dresner, who had just finished Boris Yeltsin's victory campaign in Russia (March-July 1996), and began his own European career, until his retirement in 2020.
At the same time, between the years 1993-2000, Werber served as a communications, legislation and government affairs consultant for companies and organizations in Israel, including the Channel 2 franchises, Reshet, Keshet and Talad, The National Association of High School Teachers, Israel Democracy Institute (and the annual Caesarea conference), The movement for progressive Judaism and the Conservative movement in Israel (the Naaman Committee, the Conversion Law), the organization of television and film producers (the Cinema Law), the organization of gas station owners, municipalities and many regional and local councils.
Since his retirement, he is only engaged in voluntary (pro bono) consulting for civic society groups.
