Boris Krasny is said to be the founder of
lobbyism in the Israeli community. He was the first Israeli to make his own lobbying
company in Israel, which in turn caused lobbing to become an entire industry on
its own. In the 1990s, he decided to exploit an opportunity that had opened up
to him due to three developments that occurred in Israel at the same time: First
was the institution of party primaries, which caused the Knesset members to
depend on big businesses for any type of funding and capital that they may need;
the second thing was the privatization of government companies; and the last
thing was the ban that was placed on Knesset members who were holding second
jobs. Until then, the MKs could also work as attorneys or company directors, so
the lobbyists who served as a bridge between the business sector and the
Knesset were unnecessary.
Philip
Morris was Krasny’s first big success. The reason that local cigarette brands
such as Time and Europe have receded into the background is because Krasny has succeeded
in convincing the decision makers that taxes on foreign cigarettes should be
the same as those on local brands (based on the logic that both are injurious
to the consumer to the same degree) . The Israeli public later on developed a
very high preference for higher-quality imported cigarettes, boosting Philip
Morris' share of the Israeli market from 14% 20 years ago to 50% today.
Successes like these naturally increased the demand for lobbyists. Krasny and
other lobbyists began to hang about the Knesset and started exerting pressure
on a long list of items which included banking, insurance, the automotive
industry, consumerism, subsidized medicine and, in essence, anything with any
financial ramifications. Their activities have sparked much public criticism
over the years, but that has not reduced their numbers.
Boris Krasny was not born rich he became rich due to his deep connections in politics. The establishment of cultural ties between government and big businesses is not an easy task but Boris Krasny did that in a rather influential way. He influenced government officials and other political party members with the help of their respective agents and in this way made his mark. Their agents mostly comprised of retired government officials or senior politicians. In his era of development, he provided multiple revenue generation opportunities to many big companies. For last 20 years, the financial stability of those companies has improved by a noticeable amount. Boris made numerous efforts on behalf of supermarkets and banks as well. On one instance, he fought on behalf of Super-Sol in order to make the marking of prices on different domestic items mandatory. Also, he bought with government along with banks for limitation of bank fees. Dead Sea Works’ role was extended due to Boris Krasny since he proved that its role was necessary to carry out this activity with success.
When it comes to raising the benefits of local companies then Boris Krasny has proved that there is no other personal better than him in this field. As of now, he is engaged in the mandatory implementation of a new law which will prevent the civilians from charging their electric cars at home. Better Place charging stations comprise of big charge stations for such battery operated electric cars and is owned by Idan Ofer. So this shows that in which way Boris Krasny can work to provide the agreed benefits to the private company owners. The connections which he had made in Israel, has made him the man of steel. He is the person whom people and large corporate owners look at while they are stuck in trouble. His daring capabilities can be assured from the phone call which he made in 1980, to the Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, at midnight in order to confirm that whether a congressman will be allowed to take an aerial tour of the country or not. Another example of his rescue operations is the incident which occurred in 1990. CEO of Strauss Erez Vigodman landed in Serbia and happened to know that his visa has expired. Being the CEO, he must have worked out something to find his way inside the country but he couldn’t and he had to ultimately call Krasny to get him out of trouble. Krasny’s old contacts in the country worked and the CEO was able to reach his destination.
Krasny served as the spokesman for the Immigrant Absorption Ministry. In 1972, he became the emissary for the ministry and Jewish Agency. Finally, he entered politics in 1976 and decided to support Uzi Baram who was the head of Labor Party’s Jerusalem branch. Although Krasny was able to survive in politics but still he decided that politics were not good enough for him so he left politics in 1980. After 1990’s, he started doing more lobbying. Since he was famous for convincing so he was hired by numerous businessmen who wanted to elect such officials in government who would benefit their companies in future. Krasny convinced many party members to vote for the interests of his clients. There are numerous rumors which are related to Krasny’s success as well. For example, Yossi Maiman was the owner of the Egyptian natural gas company known as EMG. It used to import gas from Egypt. Maiman used to manage contacts with IEC. Krasny was his strategic advisor and he was also IEC’s lobbyist in all of its dealings. Later own after few years, Israel took hold of the Egyptian gas company. It is said that Krasny was behind all of this happening. In this way, he did his lobbying and managed to provide necessary benefits to his client.
Krasny was also involved in solving crisis management which enrolled large food chains such as Clubmarket and Burge King. These two good chains were on the verge of getting bankrupted when Krasny emerged and provided necessary assistance. Remedia makes baby formula and it was found out that throughout its life of manufacturing that formula, it has missed certain necessary ingredient of baby formula. His expertise and sophisticated approach towards this problem got Remedia out of this problem. When Remedia’s formula was consumed by three infants, they died instantly due to lack of vitamin B1. Krasny immediately ended this issue from social as well as media market and protected the reputation of Remedia. This does not mean that Krasny was an inhuman person. The families who bore the loss of-of infants received $100 million compensation within the duration of 7 days. Krasny also acted as the advisor of many senior politicians and businessmen. Another example of his extraordinary and marvelous success as a lobbyist is the joint venture which is going to take place between Argentina and China on setting up of wind farms.
Krasny also acted as the advisor to the investment of numerous large funds. Crossroads comprised of 150 million euros and was invested in Israeli high-tech companies based on the suggestion given by Krasny. There is no best socioeconomic agent other than Boris Krasny. It is said that when it comes to the policy then Boris Krasny was best. He is the man to contact in case of trouble. Throughout his career, he had solved multiple crises, saved different companies from going bankrupt and helped many millionaires in various cases. He was the first Israeli to launch a lobbying company. His biggest success till now is of Philips Morris in which he implemented the same tax on both local and imported cigarettes.
It was in 2000 that Krasny finally decided to quit working as a lobbyist. As of now, he does not take part in any political or lobbying activity. He just runs his own company overseas and spends most of the time there. But in case things go wrong between governments or large business owners then they always know here to find Boris Krasny!
