Elliot Brandt, the current vice CEO of AIPAC, is set to take over as the organization’s next chief executive at the end of the year, when current CEO Howard Kohr retires, the influential pro-Israel lobbying and advocacy group announced on Tuesday.

Brandt has spent nearly three decades at AIPAC, beginning in San Francisco before moving to Los Angeles and then Washington, D.C., in 2015 to become AIPAC’s managing director, according to an AIPAC statement. He assumed the vice CEO role in January, months before Kohr announced his retirement in March.

The AIPAC release credits Brandt with playing an “integral role in driving” AIPAC’s landmark shift in the 2022 election cycle into direct political spending and fundraising through a new PAC and super PAC, and with doubling AIPAC’s fundraising.

“Elliot is a gifted and effective communicator. Over the past nine years, he has traveled to nearly every community in the country, meeting with countless AIPAC members and effectively expanding the circle of donors engaging in our work to strengthen bipartisan support for Israel in Congress,” the statement reads. “From major speeches to individual conversations, Elliot is unmatched in how he articulates our mission and motivates our membership.”

It names Kohr, as well as longtime AIPAC regional director Naomi Lauter, former AIPAC President Larry Weinberg and former co-CEO Richard Fishman, who led AIPAC’s transition into direct political advocacy, as among Brandt’s mentors.