executive team

Janet Lustgarten Janet Lustgarten, Co-founder and CEO
Prior to founding Kx, Ms. Lustgarten worked as a consultant for Price Waterhouse and two artificial intelligence companies. There she led projects for customers including DuPont, General Motors and P&G. She received a BA in Computer Science and Mathematical Logic from Mount Holyoke College and an MS in Computer Science from Columbia University.
   
Arthur Whitney Arthur Whitney, Co-founder
Prior to founding Kx, Mr. Whitney was a Managing Director of Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) in New York, where he led an internal team that developed global trading and risk management systems using the k language. Earlier, Mr. Whitney was at Morgan Stanley, where he developed the A+ programming language, used to build trading systems, databases and analytics for equities and fixed income. Mr. Whitney studied set theory, foundations and computational complexity at the University of Toronto and Stanford. Read interviews with Arthur from 2004 and 2009 about the design of programming languages.
   
Simon Garland Simon Garland, Chief Strategist
Mr. Garland is responsible for technical support of Kx products worldwide. Prior to joining Kx in 2002, he worked for an international database search engine firm, as well as for Credit Suisse's risk management department. He has developed software using the k programming language and kdb since the products were introduced and has specialized in financial and business database programming, including global risk limit and search engine applications, since the 1980s. Mr. Garland received his degree in Mathematics from the University of London and is currently based in Europe.
   
Charles Skelton Charles G. Skelton, Chief Technology Officer
Mr. Skelton is responsible for Kx’s product development, enhancement and support with a particular focus on new features. Before joining Kx Mr. Skelton was the owner and principal consultant at Skelton Consulting GmbH, a product development and software consultancy specializing in financial markets technology. He has expertise in writing feed handlers and setting up very large, high-performance, infrastructure market data systems for tier one banks. He has worked with specialized teams deploying Kx technology at financial institutions including JPMorgan, HVB and Deutsche Bank. Mr. Skelton has a BSc (Hons.) in Applied Physics. He is a regular presenter at Kx’s annual conferences.
   
Chris Burke Chris Burke, Director of Asia Pacific
Mr. Burke is responsible for Kx sales and technical support throughout AsiaPac. Prior to joining Kx, Mr. Burke was owner and principal consultant at Strand Software, providing consultancy and development to financial clients worldwide, working on treasury, compliance reporting, risk management and budgeting systems. He is also a partner in Jsoftware and one of the developers of the J programming system.
   
Bob Fourr Robert Fourr, General Counsel
Mr. Fourr has been practicing law for more than 25 years, with a focus on information technology for the past ten years. He has his own law firm, Licensing Strategies, and previously was a member of Venture Law Group’s intellectual property practice, as well as Senior University Counsel to Stanford University. Mr. Fourr has a Bachelor of Arts from Stanford University and a law degree from Stanford Law School.