Ambassador Yaffe Ben-Ari – retired ambassador and honorary member of the board of the Israel Japan Chamber of Commerce.
Yaffe Ben-Ari is a diplomat with a 40-year career in the foreign service. Served in Asia, Europe, USA and Africa.
Among her most prominent positions, she served as Israel’s Ambassador to Japan (2017-2021), Deputy Director General, Head of the Economic department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2017-2014), Ambassador to Serbia and Montenegro (2003-2007) and Spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2000-2002).
Over the years, Mrs. Ben-Ari has faced Israel’s branding and marketing challenges while promoting the state political, economic and cultural ties in various countries.
In her role as Israel’s Ambassador to Japan, aside from fostering political relations, Ben-Ari focused on upgrading the economic ties that gained momentum within the framework of promoting joint decisions of the two governments. The various actions led by the embassy in the economic and marketing-branding field led to an extraordinary take-off in Japanese investments in Israel. As part of the activity, she even initiated and assisted the decision of the El-Al Airline to launch direct flights between Tel Aviv and Tokyo, the opening of which in 2020 was postponed due to the Corona epidemic.
The collaborations in the fields of culture and academia contributed greatly to the overall improvement of Israel’s image in Japan.
Recognizing the importance of exhibitions and fairs as a lever for building a national image and promoting Israel’s economy, she established, and very successfully fulfilled, an innovative role at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: managing Israel’s participation in the World Expo in Shanghai, China 2010 and the International Expo in Yeosu Korea 2012. As part of the Yearly Outstanding Employee contest, she was chosen as the outstanding manager of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for 2010 with an emphasis on extraordinary achievements in the management of the Expo project and excellence as a way of life. During 2011, Ben-Ari was leading an office think tank to create a new system for public diplomacy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and at the same time served as a professional consultant in the tender processes for the establishment of the Israel Pavilion in Floriyada (Venlo, Holland, 2012). At the end of 2012, she also served as a consultant for Israel’s participation in the Milan Expo 2015.
Yaffa Ben-Ari has a BA degree (1977) in Political Science from Tel Aviv University and MA (1999) in Public Administration with honors from Haifa University. In 2010, Ben-Ari completed a additional master’s degree in business administration (EMBA) at Bar-Ilan University. At the beginning of 2010, her students team won first place in proposing an innovative solution to the business dilemma of the El-Al airline , in a competition for Master’s degree students in Business Administration Case Study of Dan David and “The Marker”.