Isabel Maxwell is decapitating a boiled egg. It is her second of the morning. The first was too hard. Unfortunately, the second is no better. 'I guess that's England for you, hard boiled,' she shrugs.
It is a funny aside, one of many she will doubtless make throughout the course of the day. But it has an edge. She might have an Oxford education, but the daughter of Robert Maxwell doesn't spend too much time here any more. Too much history. Too much baggage. A hard-nosed, hard-boiled country that will always remember the sins of the father.
Instead, these days Maxwell prefers to swim in a different pond, one where people are not too interested in your past, just your future. She is a major player in that US home of perpetual reinvention, Silicon Valley.
Each day when she's not travelling overseas, Maxwell, one of the late newspaper tycoon's five surviving children, makes the 80-minute 'killer commute' to her company, Commtouch.
She doesn't need to do it. Maxwell calls herself a working mum, but this is a woman who, with her twin sister Christine, saw the internet's potential in 1992 and helped build Magellan, a search engine, which they sold to Excite for nearly £4.5 million.
However, Maxwell is almost messianic about the company over which she presides. At first glance her enthusiasm is hard to fathom. The Nasdaq-listed company claims to be the world's 'leading provider of outsourced email and messaging solutions'. But this doesn't seem enough to generate the fervour that Maxwell obviously feels for it, and it has yet to deliver the sort of stellar future she is predicting.
Commtouch was formed in 1991 to sort out problems that new communications technology would create for companies and consumers: they would spend so much time and money developing new ways of communicating with staff, customers and suppliers that they would lose sight of their core businesses.
Commtouch takes over and builds messaging systems not just for blue-chip clients but even for small and medium-sized enterprises. Its versatile services are available in 26 languages. Want to attract visitors to your website? Offer them free email services so they visit regularly. Want to turn the web into a direct marketing tool without being labelled a junk mailer? Commtouch will offer solutions. Almost 20 million mail boxes now depend on its technology.
Maxwell clearly believes the firm, which is not due to make a profit until next year, is set for exponential growth.
'The need for outsourcing email messaging is incredible,' she says. 'By 2003 it's going to be a $24 billion market, compared with $1bn last year.'
The explosion in different communication devices means Commtouch can position itself in the middle of the competing technologies by offering 'unified messaging solutions', shorthand for getting all your equipment - from PCs to Palm Pilots to mobile phones - talking coherently to one another.
Maxwell will emphasise these points again and again in the coming weeks. Last Monday she gave a lecture at Durham University, the following day she flew to Paris to spread the company's gospel. By the end of last week she was in Tunisia, addressing the World Congress of Women Entrepreneurs.
The congress gave her a chance to talk about one of her favourite themes, the way new technology breaks down old socio-economic barriers.
'The wonderful thing about email is it's not sexist,' she says. 'It crosses all boundaries: age, race, religion, geography and gender. In America it's almost 50/50 men and women on the internet, and in Europe women are catching up. It's democratising.'
It is a hectic schedule. Does she regret travelling so much? 'I regret...' She pulls herself up, perhaps conscious that some Maxwells are not famous for their regrets. 'I miss my son,' she says after a pause.
At first glance the prosaic world of outsourced messaging seems a world away from Maxwell's first job as a television journalist. But then it seems all of Maxwell's life she has been focusing on communication. She started off at Oxford doing a law and history degree but switched to modern languages. After working for a couple of UK regional TV stations she worked in California as an independent filmmaker. And Magellan, too, was an attempt to simplify communication.
Perhaps it comes from her father. 'He'd love it [the internet] if he was still here. He was very prescient. He was doing online stuff back in the late Sixties. He'd be in his element, he'd be having a blast, I'm sure he'd be thrilled to know what I'm doing now,' Maxwell says, throwing back her head and laughing loudly.
Does she tire of people asking about her father, the Mirror pension plunderer who died mysteriously in 1992? The laughter reaches a crescendo. Maxwell shakes her head: 'I am who I am. It's a legacy.'
Even outside her professional life Maxwell seems keen to promote communication in the widest sense. She is a governor of the Peres Centre for Peace, in Tel Aviv.
'I'm optimistic about being able to help. I don't have starry eyes about making some mega-change. War seems to be sexy. Peace is not. But get the economic process going, and the bombs stop.'
She takes succour from the fact that the likes of Wal-Mart are moving into the Middle East. 'Too much good living has started for it to go back to another war. Yes, there'll be more terrorism, but there definitely won't be another war.'
Commtouch, an Israeli company, was attracted to Maxwell's optimism when it head-hunted her in 1997. Maxwell says it is the embodiment of the Israeli business culture. 'It's cohesive, innovative, disciplined' - and she is having the best 'corporate work experience' of her life.
Admittedly, it has been hit by the slump in hi-tech stocks, but Maxwell is san guine about it. 'If you look on the bottom of the market floor now it's just debris. Everyone's been battered.' The fact that big names such as Microsoft have bought into the company suggests Commtouch is better positioned to take the pain than many.
Maxwell jokes about persuading Bill Gates to make a personal investment in the business. In a faux southern belle accent, she purrs: 'He's got to spend $375m a year to keep his tax free status, why not allow me to help him.' She explodes with laughter.
Several times after the interview she rings to reiter ate facts and stress points. Given what the Maxwell name stands for in Britain, her desire to get her story across is understandable.
And she wants it to be her own story. If Commtouch soars, Maxwell will be able to step out of her father's shadow for good.
Profile
Name: Isabel Maxwell
Job: President, Commtouch
Age: 'How old do you think I am? I'm 50'
Other directorships: Governor of Peres Peace Centre, Tel Aviv
Hobbies: Climbing, mountain biking, skiing