Born to Dina and Raphael Recanati in New York City in 1949, Yehuda Leon Recanati (Oudi) studied at Lycée Francais and Ramaz, before coming to lsrael in 1965 at age 16. After graduating from Gymnasia Herzliya in Te lAviv, Oudi served as an artillery officer in the lsrael Defense Forces. Fluent in English, French and Hebrew, he earned a BA from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an MBA from Tel Aviv University.

Oudi served in many different capacities at Israel Discount Bank from 1974 to 1986, including Director and Deputy General Manager, and served as a member of the Management Committee in charge of the lnternational Division. ln 1986, due to the "bank share crisis", Oudi left the bank and became Joint General Manager of IDB Development.

ln 1988/9 Oudi left the group, and founded YLR lnvestments, which later became a leading investment house in lsrael, traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. After returning to IDB in 1997 he was Co-Chairman and Co-CEO of IDB Holding Corporation Ltd., and Chairman of Discount lnvestment Corporation (DlC), two of the largest diversified investment and financial holding companies in lsrael at that time. He held those positions until 2002.

From 1996 to 2A13, he was a Director of Overseas Shipholding Group, lnc. Oudi was Chairman of Discount lnvestment Corporation Ltd. from 1997 to 2003; Chairman of Discount Bank and Trust Company (Switzerland) from 1999 to 2003; Director and Member of the Executive Committee of Union Bancaire Privee (Switzerland), 2003 - 2008.

As founder and Chairman of Naftali lnvestments, established in 2002 together with his children Shai and Shira, and CEO Meir Hadar, they have holdings in lsraeli high-tech, biotech, media content, television as well as in other fields.