About

Irwin Katsof

 

Managing Director, New Biomass Energy LLC

US Commerce Department International Trade Advisory Committee (ITAC 6)

Director, Americas Voices in Israel

President and CEO, Global Capital Associates

Founder, Words Can Heal

Board member CTM Media Corporation

Irwin G. Katsof, businessman, educator and author, is a dynamic and driven individual. He might best be described as an outstanding successful serial entrepreneur.

Katsof is a Founding member and Managing Director of New Biomass Energy LLC (www.newbiomass.com) that manufactures torrefied wood, a renewable biomass alternative to coal in the United States and Europe. In this capacity he makes use of his vast number of relationships with chairmen and chief executive officers of public and private companies, investment bankers, and institutional and private investors to benefit the firm. New Biomass opened the worlds first continuously operated commercial plant for the manufacture of torrefied wood in August 2011 in Quitman, Mississippi.

Katsof’s current endeavor is the culmination of a series of great strides he made over the past 25 years.

In 1982, he moved from Jerusalem’s Old City to Los Angeles with his bride of 10 days, Judy, to establish what became a world-class model for Jewish adult educational programs. Among these was the cutting-edge “Twenty Something” seminar which was featured on the front-page of the Los Angeles Times View section and which has been copied around the globe. In 1992, he was ordained as a rabbi, and in 1994 organized the largest-ever international satellite broadcast in the Jewish world called “Help Our People Know,” to bring attention to the plight of Jews in the former Soviet Union who had been denied knowledge of their heritage under the communist regime. Vice President Al Gore, Simon Wiesenthal, Sumner Redstone and Jeffrey Katzenberg took part in the broadcast, which reached ten countries on four continents.

In 1995, Katsof founded the Jerusalem Fund of Aish HaTorah, and shortly thereafter relocated to New York with his wife Judy and eight children in tow. He served as its Executive Vice President until mid-2004 and thereafter as a Board Member.

Katsof recruited countless senior level Officers of Fortune 1000 Companies and our nations political leadership   for his high-level Jerusalem Fund missions to Israel and Jordan between 1996 and 2004, including former Commissioners of the FDA Mark McLellan and Andrew Von Eschenbach, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, Governors Rick Perry, Tommy Thompson, Bill Owens, Christine Todd Whitman, Senators  Harry Reid ,Orrin Hatch, John Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, past House Speaker Newt Gingrich,  Lady Margaret Thatcher, former Secretary of Housing Henry Cisneros and Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick, as well as numerous business leaders, among them National Semiconductors’ Brian Halla, Chairman of Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide Barry Sternlicht, Starbucks’ Chairman Howard Schultz, founder of AOL James Kimsey, and Coors Brewery Chairman Pete Coors.

His creative, soft-spoken approach attracted many celebrities and business leaders to explore their Jewish roots. CNN’s Larry King, actors Kirk Douglas, Elliot Gould, Jason Alexander, Rod Steiger and William Shatner, as well as business magnates, AOL Time Warner Investments President Len Leader, and Dean and DeLuca Chairman Les Rudd are among the many that Katsof inspired to get involved in Jerusalem Fund programs.

In 2001, Katsof assisted in the founding of “HonestReporting.com,” a fast-action, interactive website which alerts, informs and mobilizes grassroots activists via email to respond to unbalanced reporting on Israel and the Middle East.

That same year, Katsof also launched “Words Can Heal,” a nationwide campaign to strengthen America through the power of words. As Executive Director, he oversaw the fastest and highest profile media launch of a non-profit organization ever. “Words Can Heal” was featured on over 100 national TV shows, including Oprah, Fox, CBS and ABC primetime news, as well as in 150 leading media outlets – among them the New York Times, Washington Post, and USA Today – and in an exclusive National Press Club event hosted by Goldie Hawn and broadcast live on C-SPAN and NPR.

On top of all of these accomplishments, Katsof has authored three books between 1998 and 2001, and is currently working on his fourth. In 1998, he co-authored with Larry King, Powerful Prayers: Conversations on Faith, Hope and the Human Spirit with Today’s Most Provocative People, which was ranked the tenth best-selling religious book of the year according to Publishers Weekly. His second book, How to Get Your Prayers Answered, was published in 2000 and reissued in 2002. His third, The Words Can Heal Handbook:  How Changing Your Words Can Change Your Life, was released in 2001. His fourth book – a memoir tentatively entitled A Time of Living Dangerously: Trying to Get Rich While Staying Connected to God – is in progress.

In 2005, he went on to found the World Congress of Christians, Jews and Muslims, an organization with a mission to harness the spiritual power and religious wisdom of these faiths in the service of universal peace and tolerance.

Later that year Katsof established Global Capital Associates, a networking and consulting firm dedicated to initiating international partnerships and creating strategic alliances. Global Capital Associates assisted Israeli and Central/Eastern European start-ups in finding US investors and strategic partners, and developed investment banking relationships by capitalizing on an elite, worldwide contact network spanning a diverse range of industries – from defense to high-tech, from the life sciences to finance. Katsof arranged for AOL Investments to make their first strategic investments in Israeli companies. As a result, AOL Investments took an equity position in Dealtime.com, which later went public as Shopping.com and in Gurunet.com, which became Answers.com and also had a successful IPO.

Katsof was a Founding member of the Board of Directors of IDT Entertainment from 2003-2006.

In 2006, Katsof received his Series 7 Financial Certification.

Katsof was the Co-Leader of the US Commerce department 2008 Trade Mission to the Republic of Georgia with Under Secretary of Trade John Sullivan, US Trade Representative Larry Walther and Director of Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) Robert Mosbacher Jr.

In 2010, Katsof became Director of Americas Voices in Israel.  America’s Voices engages both traditional and “new media” mavens, high profile sports personalities and entertainers, key opinion molders, moderate Muslim leaders, diplomats, and other influential personalities whose first-hand experiences in Israel can provide an antidote to the distortions and misrepresentations about the Jewish state that are increasingly promulgated by those who seek to delegitimize and demonize Israel.

In 2010, Katsof was appointed to the Board of Directors of CTM Media, a publically listed media and marketing company.

Mr. Katsof was the Co- Leader of a US Commerce Department 2010 Trade Mission to Belarus, to discuss Energy development and general business opportunities.

In 2011, Katsof was appointed by US Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke and Ambassador Ron Kirk, the United States Trade Representative to be one of ten national energy executives to serve on the US Commerce Department Trade Advisory Board (ITAC 6) to advise the United States Government on International Energy Trade Policy. His term runs through 2014.

Katsof lives with his family in Monsey, New York. He has ten grandchildren in Israel.