Founding Team

BIRD Aerosystems was founded in 2001 by Mr. Ronen Factor, Mr. David Dragucki and Mr. Zahi Ben Ari. Together they merged their individual talents, knowledge, operational know-how and wide expertise in avionics and various airborne weapon systems to create a leading company providing special mission aircraft solutions and airborne missile protection systems. The founders all served in the prestigious Israeli Air Force, either as pilots or as senior program managers, gaining invaluable experience in combat situations and a deep understanding of complex operational requirements. It is this experience and understanding that laid the foundation for the company during its inception and what guides it still today.

Mr. Ronen Factor

Co-Chief Executive Officer and Founder

Mr. Factor has led BIRD Aerosystems Ltd. as Co-CEO, since co-founding the company in 2001.
As such, he oversees the company’s growth strategy and worldwide business development, as well as its marketing, commercial, finance and subsidiary management. He has been responsible for the continuous growth of the company over the past two decades, including the M&A process with FIMI Opportunity Funds in 2018.
In taking the lead of the business development his work has included establishing companies in various countries and expanding global corporate partnerships, while his background in innovation and engineering has enabled him to lead the development of BIRD's advanced technologies and systems that are used to protect aircraft, maritime and ground borders and land-based and strategic facilities around the world.
Mr. Factor has dozens of patents registered in his name in the fields of lasers, jammers, radars and detectors. His decades of experience include working with Avionics and leading the end-to-end development and implementation of airborne EW systems.
Prior to founding BIRD, Mr. Factor was leading the developing the South African Rooivalk attack helicopter, responsible for the complete helicopter's Human Machine Interface as well as the system integration and testing of the helicopter's weapons, avionics, visionics and EW systems.
Mr. Factor also brings deep operational know how gained from his significant exposure to innovation within the military as a helicopter combat pilot.
Beyond is roles at BIRD, Mr. Factor also serves as Chairman of the Board and board member at several companies. He holds a bachelor of science degree in Industrial Engineering and Management from Ben-Gurion University, and served many years as an attack helicopter pilot in the Israeli Air Force.

Mr. David Dragucki (Drago)

Co-Chief Executive Officer and Founder

Mr. Dragucki heads the company as part of a joint management team together with Mr. Ronen Factor.
Mr. Dragucki has vast experience specializing in air-to-ground weapon systems, UAVs, avionics, and airborne EW systems.
Prior to founding BIRD, Mr. Dragucki was the program director for major air-to-surface missile programs for the IMOD and for major Israeli defense companies. In addition, he was contracted by the largest Israeli defense company to manage one of its major UAV programs for a foreign client.
Mr. Dragucki served as an officer and program manager for the Israeli Air Force heading the Delilah air-to-ground weapon system program.
Mr. Dragucki holds a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering, from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, and a MA in Business Administration from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Mr. Zahi Ben-Ari

Founder

Mr. Ben-Ari has vast experience in system design and system architecture of UAVs, aircraft avionics and operational requirement definitions. He specializes in airborne weapon systems.
Prior to founding BIRD, Mr. Ben-Ari worked as a senior system engineer for several leading defense companies in Israel and was responsible for the system engineering activities for major, state-of-the-art air-to-surface missile programs as well as for UAV programs.
Mr. Ben-Ari holds a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering, from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa and served for many years as an F-4 Phantom fighter WSO (Weapon Systems Operator) in the Israeli Air Force.