Asaf Kochan

Origins and early life

Asaf Kochan was born in Israel on 25 June 1971, grew up on Kibbutz Tzora and enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces in November 1990.

Work and career

He volunteered for Sayeret Matkal, the General Staff reconnaissance unit, became a team commander after officers' school then led operations in the army's special forces. He also held a senior post in the Prime Minister's Office and helped plan and carry out Israel's national policy in cyberspace. He commanded Unit 8200, the army's signals intelligence unit, from April 2017 to February 2021 with the rank of brigadier general.

Under his command the unit built applied capabilities in cyber operations and in data analytics driven by artificial intelligence and machine learning. He holds a law degree from the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya and a master's degree in public administration from Harvard's Kennedy School. In 2021 he co-founded Sentra, an Israeli company that secures sensitive data held in public clouds, with Yoav Regev, who had headed the unit's cyber department under him, Ron Reiter and Yair Cohen.

As its president he saw it raise 23 million dollars in seed funding in April 2022 and 50 million in April 2025, taking its total past 100 million dollars. No source states his Jewish identity in so many words, though the Jerusalem Post placed him 38th in its 2023 list of the fifty most influential Jews, and an Israeli officer's biography has little reason to mention it. He is here under the Israeli presumption the site adopted on 7 September 2026 and extended on 15 October 2026 — a Hebrew given name, a life in Israel and a strong attested tie, here his service in Sayeret Matkal and his command of Unit 8200 — which is a presumption and not a declaration, and which any contrary source overturns.