Yoav Soffer served as acting spokesperson of the Bank beginning in 2013, and was chosen for the position in 2014. He was responsible for the Bank’s communicationactivities vis-à-vis the media, financial markets, and the public in all areas of the Bank’s activities—monetary policy, foreign exchange reserves management, research and economic advice to the Government, banking supervision, management of the currency system and the economy’s payment and settlement system, the reforms promoted by the Bank of Israel, and more. During the course of his tenure as spokesperson, the Bank of Israel made extensive changes in the manner of communicating monetary policy: the Bank began to hold quarterly press briefings after interest rate decisions, it changed the structure of interest rate press releases, making them more focused on explaining the policy, and it began implementing forward guidance in order to improve financial-market participants’ ability to assess future monetary policy. For these and other activities, the Bank of Israel won the “Transparency Award” from the Central Banking international magazine in 2016. In addition, the Bank of Israel expanded its communication activities among the Arab public and in Arabic, and will soon launch an economic awareness platform for the public. The expertise and experience accumulated by Soffer in the area of central bank communication led to his being called by the International Monetary Fund to provide technical assistance to central banks in developing economies in this field.
Yo
av Soffer said, “I had the privilege to lead the communication policy of one of the leading institutions in public service in Israel, to contribute, even if a little, to an informed and comprehensive public economic discussion, and to assist the Bank in carrying out its functions and attaining its objectives. I thank the dozens of journalists that I merited to meet and work with in recent years—a task that is at times challenging but always interesting and satisfying. I am grateful to the many good colleagues in the Bank’s Spokesperson’s office, and for the trust placed in me by the Governor, the former Governor, and all the members of the Bank’s management over the years.”
Governor of the Bank of Israel Prof. Amir Yaron said, “I would like to thank Yoav for the considerable assistance he provided me when I took on my role. Yoav served as Bank of Israel spokesperson during a period filled with numerous events in which the Bank’s policy was supported by intensive publicity efforts in all areas of the Bank’s activity, vis-à-vis domestic and international media, the economic community and the general public.Yoav made a significant contribution to our monetary policy communication, contributed to the implementation of the forward guidance policy, and expanded the Bank’s communicationactivity to additional groups in the Israeli public. He managed the communicationpolicy successfully and for that the Bank of Israel and I thank him. I am convinced that with his notable abilities, Yoav will continue to contribute to the Bank in the significant manner he has done until now.”