Janet Lustgarten

When Janet Lustgarten, arrived in Miami from Colombia at the age of seven, she spoke no English. Without a mastery of the English language, she looked to mathematics for a way to excel in school.

Lustgarten’s love of numbers led her to become the first Mount Holyoke student ever to earn a degree in computer science and mathematical logic. Ambitious from the start, Lustgarten talked her way into her first post-collegiate job by suggesting the creation of a technical support department at a New York City computer retailer.

When Lustgarten wanted to return to school, she set her sights on Columbia University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science. Initially, Lustgarten was not accepted to the program. Believing she was rejected based on the English section of her GREs, Lustgarten wrote to the Dean and argued for her abilities. Columbia reversed its decision, and Lustgarten earned her master’s in Computer Science, graduating in 1985.

After working as a consultant for Price Waterhouse and two artificial intelligence companies, Lustgarten decided it was time to run her own company. Kx Systems, founded in 1993, has flourished under her leadership. Janet is co-founder and former CEO of Kx Systems, a data analysis software developer and vendor based in Palo Alto, CA. Kx Systems focuses providing its customers with the fastest, most efficient, and most flexible tools for processing real-time and historical data. This focus has enabled the company to become the worldwide leader of in-memory, time-series databases. The company’s products include two programming languages, K and Q, and a database based on K.

Janet currently serves as the President of Shakti Software started in 2018 in partnership with Arthur Whitney. Shakti Software merges database, language, connectivity and stream processing into one platform.