Katharine Wolanyk is a managing director with responsibility for leading Burford’s award-winning intellectual property and patent litigation finance business. Ms Wolanyk is an IP industry leader, with recognitions including Chambers Band 1 for IP litigation funding, the IAM Strategy 300, and the Lawdragon 100 global leaders in legal finance. Ms Wolanyk served as a public company board director at Acacia Research Corporation. Before joining Burford in 2015, she was president of Soverain Software; general counsel of an internet hosting services provider; senior vice president of corporate development at a publicly-traded enterprise software company; and a corporate attorney at Latham & Watkins. Before law school, she was a systems engineer at Hughes Aircraft Company, where she worked on the radar system for the B-2 Stealth Bomber. Ms Wolanyk earned her JD from the University of Chicago Law School and a BS in engineering from Michigan State University.