Isabel Maxwell
{{short description|French-born entrepreneur}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Isabel Maxwell
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|df=yes|1950|08|16}}
| birth_place = Maisons-Laffitte, France
| education = St Hilda's College, Oxford
University of Edinburgh
| occupation = Entrepreneur
| mother = Elisabeth Maxwell
| father = Robert Maxwell
| relatives = Christine Maxwell (twin sister)
Ghislaine Maxwell (sister)
Kevin Maxwell (brother)
Ian Maxwell (brother)
| spouse = {{plainlist|
- {{marriage|Dale Djerassi|1984|1989|reason=divorced}}
- {{marriage|David Hayden|1990|1996|reason=divorced}}
}}
| partner = Al Seckel (2007–2015)
| children = 1
}}
Isabel Sylvia Margaret Maxwell (born 16 August 1950) is a French-born entrepreneur and the co-founder of Magellan, an early search engine that was acquired by Excite. Maxwell has been listed as a Technology Pioneer of the World Economic Forum,{{cite web |url=http://www.weforum.org/contributors/isabel-s-maxwell|title = Isabel S. Maxwell | publisher = World Economic Forum | accessdate = 11 March 2019}} She served as the President of Commtouch, an Israeli internet company that became CYREN.{{Cite web|last1=Sagi|first1=Yehoshua|last2=Sagi-Maydan|first2=Mary|date=December 2, 2002|title=Comfortable in her skin|url=https://www.haaretz.com/1.5280056|access-date=2020-07-15|website=Haaretz|language=en}} She was a Director of Israel Venture Network and built up their Social Entrepreneur program in Israel from 2004–2010.
Early life and education
Maxwell was born in Maisons Laffitte, France on 16 August 1950 along with her fraternal twin sister Christine Maxwell, to parents Elisabeth and Robert Maxwell. Her father, a Czechoslovak-born British media proprietor, was Jewish and her mother, a French-born Holocaust scholar, was of Huguenot descent. One of nine children, her siblings include brothers Kevin Maxwell and Ian Maxwell, and younger sister Ghislaine Maxwell. From 1960, her family lived at Headington Hill Hall where the offices to Robert Maxwell's Pergamon Press were located. Her mother stated that while all of her children were brought up Anglican, Isabel was "very taken by the Jewish faith and the politics in Israel."{{Cite news|url=https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/celebrity/article/relative-values-elisabeth-maxwell-the-widow-of-robert-maxwell-and-their-daughter-isabel-7s67cqwksvb?region=global%2Cglobal|title=Relative Values: Elisabeth Maxwell, the widow of Robert Maxwell, and their daughter Isabel|last=McFerran|first=Ann|date=11 April 2004|work=The Sunday Times|access-date=27 August 2019}}
Maxwell was a pupil at Milham Ford School, Oxford, going on to study at St Hilda's College, University of Oxford, graduating with an MA in Law, History, and French in 1972.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=1999-12-24|title=Magnates daughter forges own path in Silicon Valley|url=https://www.jweekly.com/1999/12/24/magnate-s-daughter-forges-own-path-in-silicon-valley/|access-date=2020-07-15|website=J. Weekly|language=en-US}}{{cite magazine |last1=Bronson |first1=Po |title=On The Net, No One Knows You're a Maxwell |url=https://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.02/maxwell_pr.html |access-date=26 July 2024 |magazine=Wired |date=February 1999 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010626212253/https://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.02/maxwell_pr.html |archive-date=2001-06-26}} She earned a master's degree in Education (French) from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, before beginning her career in film and television production.
Career
=Film and television=
In 1973, Maxwell made her first film, an adaptation of the book Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Her second film, a documentary on lesbian women, was made in 1980 while at Southern Television in the UK.
In 1981, Maxwell relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area of California in the United States where she continued to produce and direct documentaries. In 1982, Maxwell wrote and directed Gray's Inn - A Fountain of Justice,[https://web.archive.org/web/20131029193156/http://explore.bfi.org.uk/4ce2b6e58eaea Gray's Inn - A Fountain of Justice], BFI narrated by Ludovic Kennedy.
Maxwell worked with Djerassi Films Inc. on collaborative projects with Dale Djerassi whom she married in 1984. They co-produced the feature film
In 1990, Maxwell left the film industry, moved to Berkeley, and began to work with her sister Christine at an internet data company.
=Magellan=
Maxwell was a co-founder of the company behind early search engine Magellan. Isabel joined twin sister Christine Maxwell who was leading a small company called Research on Demand that was online in 1993"[http://www.internetsociety.org/who-we-are/people/christine-maxwell]". The company changed names to McKinley Group (named after North America’s highest mountain){{Cite web|last=Willis|first=Tim|date=April 2000|title=Tatler Archive: The return of the Maxwells, as Ghislaine is finally found|url=https://www.tatler.com/article/tatler-archives-maxwell-family-interview|access-date=2020-07-14|website=Tatler|language=en-GB}} and became a search engine with ratings. Maxwell served as a senior vice president, her second husband, David Hayden, was CEO and her sister Christine was publisher. The Maxwell sisters launched the Magellan web search service in September 1995.{{Cite web|last=Rafter|first=Michelle V.|date=1996-06-26|title=McKinley Group Ousts Its Chairman and CEO|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-06-26-fi-18733-story.html|access-date=2020-07-15|website=Los Angeles Times|language=en-US}} In early 1996, the company was poised to IPO, but investment bank Robertson Stephens decided to put Excite on the market first. A few months later, IPOs became difficult and the startup company was running out of money. Magellan wanted to go public with Lehman doing the offering but was unsuccessful. Michael Wolfe's book Burn Rate also describes a failed deal to combine with Wolff New Media, which shortly later went broke itself.Burn Rate, Michael Wolfe With intensifying financial constraints, Maxwell’s husband was pushed out of the company by investors and her sister left. Isabel assumed the responsibility to dispose of the company. After a layoff, the firm was sold for $18 million (of stock) to competitor Excite.
=Later technology leadership=
Maxwell was the president of Commtouch, Inc., an Israeli-American e-mail messaging and security company, from 1997 to 2001. The company went public on NASDAQ in 1999.{{Cite news|date=July 1, 1999|title=CommTouch Boosts Number of Shares for IPO|work=Los Angeles Times|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jul-12-fi-55177-story.html}} In 2014, the company changed its name to CYREN.[http://www.commtouch.com/uploads/2013/04/Commtouch-Annual-Report-2012-20F.pdf Commtouch 2012 Annual Report (SEC form 20F)]
From 2003 to 2004, Maxwell was invited by Blumberg capital to become CEO of iCognito,{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=2003-09-10|title=Start-up iCognito raises $3.1m, recruits Isabel Maxwell as CEO|url=https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-722778|access-date=2020-07-15|website=Globes|language=}} renamed Puresight, an Israeli web content filtering software company. She turned the company around, and it was sold in 2005 to Boston Communications.[https://archive.today/20130701061134/http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Wqex6Jwe6C4J:www.maxwell-communications.com/isabel.htm+&cd=12&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us Maxwell Communications bio] (cached copy as of June 2013){{Cite news|url=https://www.jpost.com/Business/Business-Features/Serial-entrepreneur|title=Serial Entrepreneur|last=Wrobel|first=Sharon|date=24 August 2006|work=The Jerusalem Post|access-date=3 August 2019}}
Other interests
Maxwell was a member of Israel Venture Network (IVN), an organization founded in 2001 by Éric Benhamou.{{Cite news|url=https://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2012/10/12/israels-rather-different-social-network/|title=Israel's Rather Different Social Network|last=Rooney|first=Ben|date=12 October 2012|work=The Wall Street Journal|access-date=3 August 2019}} She was the chairperson of the IVN Social Entrepreneur Fellowship Program, from 2004-2010. She spoke on several occasions for and on behalf of IVN at conferences such as WEBBIT in Istanbul in Turkey.
Maxwell has been a director of the Peres center for peace and has also been involved in fundraising for Soroka Medical Center. She has served on the board of the American Friends of the Yitzhak Rabin Center.
She has worked as a consultant for startup companies and venture capitalists.{{Cite web|url=https://www.webit.org/festival-europe/speakers.php|title=Speakers of WEBIT|website=www.webit.org}}
She is president of Blue World Alliance (Globalsolver Foundation).
- https://books.google.com/books?id=DsSVEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT263&lpg=PT263&dq=%22Blue+World+Alliance%22
- https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-illusionist-al-seckel
- https://eintaxid.com/company/263694891-globalsolver-foundation/
- https://501c3lookup.org/globalsolver-foundation_263694891
- https://www.weforum.org/people/al-seckel/
- https://www.weforum.org/people/isabel-s-maxwell/
Personal life
In 1984, Maxwell married filmmaker Dale Djerassi, affiliate of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program and son of birth control pill inventor Carl Djerassi. Maxwell and Djerassi had one son, Alexander, born that same year. The couple later divorced, in 1989.{{Cite web|url=https://gw.geneanet.org/apotheloz?lang=en&pz=christian+claude&nz=apotheloz&p=isabel&n=maxwell|title=Isabel Maxwell: Family Tree|last=APOTHÉLOZ|first=Christian|website=Geneanet|access-date=27 August 2019}}
Maxwell married dot-com entrepreneur David Hayden in 1990. The marriage deteriorated in 1996 and later ended in divorce.{{Cite news|last=Hafner|first=Katie|date=2007-04-21|title=The Perils of Being Suddenly Rich|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/21/technology/21hayden.html|access-date=2020-05-05|issn=0362-4331}}
In 2007, Maxwell married Al Seckel. Maxwell and Seckel moved to France{{cite web | url=https://www.thecut.com/2019/08/ghislaine-maxwell-family-twin-sisters.html | title=Ghislaine Maxwell's Twin Sisters Have Their Own Wild Stories | date=21 August 2019 }} from Malibu, California, around 2010, to care for Maxwell's ailing mother.{{Cite web |url=https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/191806/the-illusionist-al-seckel|title=The Illusionist |last=Oppenheimer |first=Mark |work=Tablet (magazine)|quote= Sometime about five years ago, Maxwell and Seckel moved to the south of France to care for her ailing mother, who died in 2013. They have stayed in France, and Seckel told me he doesn’t miss California..|date=20 July 2015 |accessdate=11 March 2019}} They lived in Chateau de la Malartrie in La Roque-Gageac.{{cn|date=July 2021}} In November 2015, after Seckel's death, Maxwell was declared bankrupt by a British court.[https://www.thegazette.co.uk/notice/2441826 "Isabel Sylvia Margaret Maxwell--Bankruptcy Orders"], The London Gazette, Nov. 13, 2015
References
{{reflist}}
=Sources=
- [https://archive.today/20130701061134/http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Wqex6Jwe6C4J:www.maxwell-communications.com/isabel.htm+&cd=12&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us]
- [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/features/8376875/Whatever-happened-to-the-Maxwells.html The Maxwell dynasty: what happened to the disgraced mogul's family?]
External links
- Isabel Maxwell's [http://imaxwell.typepad.com/blog/ Blog]
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2020}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maxwell, Isabel}}
Category:People from Maisons-Laffitte
Category:French people of Czech-Jewish descent
Category:French people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent
Category:Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
Category:Alumni of St Hilda's College, Oxford
Category:Technology company founders
Category:Women business executives
Category:20th-century British businesswomen
Category:French emigrants to the United Kingdom
Category:French women philanthropists