François Bourdoncle, a pioneer of the search engine software market, is the cofounder and chief executive officer of Exalead. In 2000, he founded Exalead with the goal of revolutionizing the search engine software market by providing users with a unified technology platform to access information in the enterprise.  With a deep background in engineering and R&D, Bourdoncle is truly passionate about technology. He can be credited with the development of Jazz, a programming language designed for synchronous digital circuits, as well as Exascript, an object-oriented XML programming language based on Java technology.

Prior to Exalead, Bourdoncle was a researcher at both Digital Paris Research Laboratory and Digital Systems Research Center in Palo Alto, Calif. While at Ecole des Mines de Paris, he collaborated with Patrice Bertin, chief technology officer, Exalead, in conjunction with AltaVista on LiveTopics. Bourdoncle graduated from Paris-based École Polytechnique with a Ph.D. in computer science. He has also authored various technical papers and publications, and spoken at industry events.