Elizabeth Charnock founded Cataphora and has led it from concept to profitability, funded entirely by revenues from clients and without any outside investment. The company's genesis was a fundamental insight that Elizabeth had about a revolutionary approach to information retrieval. Starting from that idea, and a kitchen table group of four employees, she has guided the growth of Cataphora to over 100 employees. The company has seen three consecutive years of at least 100% growth in revenue, customers, and employee head count. In 2006, the company moved into a dedicated new headquarters building in Redwood City, California, and opened an office in Washington, DC, two blocks from the White House. 2006 also saw the granting of all claims in Cataphora’s fundamental technology patent, which Elizabeth co-authored. In leading Cataphora’s success, Elizabeth has drawn on her prior experience as an entrepreneur and CEO, and on her extensive knowledge of information retrieval technology and business. Prior to starting Cataphora, Elizabeth was CEO and founder of Troba, an industry leading Customer Relationship Management software company which she sold in 2001. Her previous experience includes management and senior engineering positions at international high tech companies such as Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems. She started her career at Unisys in Plymouth, Michigan, where she ran a human factors laboratory. Elizabeth has lived in both France and Germany and speaks both of those languages. She has been a dedicated jazz dance performer. She enjoys travel, as well as spending time at home with her whippet, Ragnar, and African Gray parrot, Howard. Elizabeth holds a BS in Theoretical Mathematics from the University of Michigan Honors Program, which she entered at the age of sixteen.

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