Ido Aharoni

Aharoni's great-grandfather, Rabbi Emanuel Aronoff, settled in Jerusalem in 1874 and was one of the founders of the Bukharan Quarter.

He was known as the “first Bukharan to move to Jerusalem by foot”.

Her Parents came from Yemen in 1912 and settled in the Yemenite section of Tel Aviv known as Kerem HaTeimanim, and later moved to Hatikva neighborhood of Tel Aviv where Aharoni spent significant time with his grandparents.

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His father, Emanuel Aharoni Aronoff, was a scholar, author, expert on the country's geography, lecturer and one of the early environmentalists in Israel.

He was of Bukharan family and was born in Mersin, Turkey in 1926 to Rabbi Avraham Aronoff (b. 1888) and his wife Hanna Aronoff (ne’e Yohananoff).

She was born in Tel Aviv in 1932.

Aharoni's father was a member of the Haganah and participated in the 1948 War of Independence where he was injured twice in battle.

Ido Aharoni Aronoff (born 21 August 1962) is an Israeli career diplomat, advisor to international companies, public speaker and university lecturer, writer and investor.

He was born in Jaffa (Tel Aviv-Yaffo), Israel.

Aharoni spent his entire diplomatic career in the United States.

He is a 25-year veteran of Israel's Foreign service.

He is a public diplomacy specialist, founder of the Brand Israel Program, and a place positioning practitioner.

Ido Aharoni Aronoff was born in Tel Aviv in 1962 and raised in Holon.

He attended CH.N. Bialik Elementary School and H. Kugel High School, both in Holon.

His mother, Ahuva Aharoni (ne’e Madar), was a kindergarten teacher.

In 1990, he earned a master's degree in Mass Communications from Emerson College in Boston.

Aharoni was a member of Israel's Foreign Service from 1991 to 2016 and held positions in Los Angeles and New York.

In 1993 Aharoni attended the Hebrew University special program for foreign service cadets in Government and Diplomacy.

In 1993, Aharoni served under then-Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, as policy advisor to Israel's chief negotiator with the Palestinians, in which capacity he took part in back-channel negotiations in Europe and the Middle East.

This led to the signing of The Declaration of Principles and the Mutual Recognition Agreement, known as the Oslo Accords.

Aharoni was a member of the Israel's delegation to the White House.

From 1994 to 1998, Aharoni served as Israel's Consul for Communications and Public Affairs in Los Angeles, working extensively with the entertainment industry and top American markets (Greater Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, Salt Lake City and Denver.):

In 2001 he was given the Honorary Citizen Award by the City of Holon.

Aharoni obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from Tel Aviv University with a joint-major in Film and Television, Sociology and Anthropology.

In 2002, Aharoni initiated the Brand Israel program after meeting with advertising executive David Sable, then with Wunderman, and introduced him to the general concept of place branding.

Aharoni facilitated the inclusion of Israel in the Brand Asset Valuator (BAV), the world's largest brand database maintained by Young and Rubicam (now VMLYR), thus launching Israel's national branding program.

In 2002–2003, Aharoni convened the Brand Israel Group in New York, an independent group of marketing and branding specialists.

In the Spring of 2006, he became Senior Advisor and Press Secretary to Israel's Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister.

In that capacity, he introduced nation branding methods and country positioning strategies as pillars of Israel's public diplomacy.

Their work laid the foundation for the official Brand Israel Program, which was subsequently launched by the Foreign Minister in October 2006.

In 2007, Aharoni was appointed as Israel's first Head of Brand Management team, designed to enhance Israel's positioning in various areas, including tourism, investment, commerce, culture, political, and reputation management.

The program aimed to showcase Israel's global relevance by leveraging its advantages.

He was Israel's longest-serving Consul-General in New York and the Tri-State Area, from 2010 to 2016, where he oversaw Israel's largest diplomatic mission worldwide.

Prior to his arrival in New York, Aharoni served as a policy advisor to the Director-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem.:

Aharoni has served as a Member of the Board Governors of Tel Aviv University's and its cabinet since 2015 and as a lecturer at the university's Coller School of Management since 2018 and is the host of TAU Unbound, the official English language podcast of Tel Aviv University.

Aharoni is the co-founder and Global Ambassador for the Genius 100 Visions community and serves as a consultant to international companies such as MasterCard APCO Worldwide, The Libra Group, Bank Leumi USA and Value Base, He is a co-founder of Israel-based consultancy Emerson Rigby Ltd. and of British-Israeli investment company EA2K.

In 2015, Aharoni presented the idea of creating a global index to rank countries as brands, to publisher Mort Zuckerman and then to advertising executive David Sable, then the CEO of Y&R.

This introduction resulted in partnership that produced the Best Countries Index by U.S. News & World Report.

In 2018, Harvard Business School published a case study report on Israel's place positioning based on the initiative's.