Blue Heron Research Partners announced it is now Heron Intelligence, reflecting the firm’s evolution from a highly differentiated investigative research business into a broader investment intelligence platform designed to help investors make decisions with greater clarity and conviction.
This comes just over a year after the firm built and launched its subscription-based diligence library, now Heron Data Libraries, an important milestone in broadening how clients access Blue Heron’s research and insight. As Heron Intelligence, the firm is building on that momentum through continued investment in technology and AI-enabled capabilities that help transform qualitative insight into structured intelligence and proprietary data at scale. The result is a more powerful platform for investors seeking differentiated insight, earlier signals, and greater conviction throughout their investment process.
Amid the ongoing surge in alternative data demand and availability across APAC, the Neudata Hong Kong Data Summit returns on 23 April 2026.
Connect with 300+ data-driven minds from across the investment landscape, for a dynamic day of global vendor discovery, handpicked insights, and high-impact networking.
The U.S. regulatory landscape is undergoing a “seismic shift” as banks face intense scrutiny over ‘debanking’ practices.
Join the expert panel from Dow Jones Risk, Morgan Lewis, and Guidepost Solutions for an essential discussion that will equip you with the insights needed to navigate the growing conflict between federal financial crime regulations and state-level fair-access laws.
Expanding Vendor-Neutral Expertise for Better Outcomes
LONDON, March 16, 2026 – Crown Jewels Consultant (CJC), the award-winning market data technology consultancy and professional services provider for global financial markets, today announced that it has become a member of Strategic Technology Analysis Centre (STAC). The move further strengthens CJC’s industry-recognised technical market data expertise by enabling its global teams access to STAC’s independent benchmarking, research, and evidence-based industry dialogue for even better client outcomes.
CJC provides vendor-neutral consultancy, commercial and technical managed services, and observability solutions for mission-critical market data systems. Across its work with financial firms, CJC is known for its SRE-driven approach to help clients design, build, and potentially operate complex market data technology, operations, governance, and commercial challenges across the financial data landscape. STAC, the trusted voice for technology performance, helps financial and technology firms make smarter decisions through rigorous benchmarking, independent research, and high-impact events spanning low-latency systems, advanced analytics, AI and machine learning, cloud, and next-generation infrastructure.
STAC’s evidence-based approach complements CJC’s expertise-led model by adding a broader industry perspective and benchmarking contexts to augment its specialised market data managed services across the full market data vendor platform landscape, including RTDS, Bloomberg BPIPE, Exegy, Activ Financial, ICE Consolidated Feed, Solace, Kafka, and associated distribution technologies. By becoming a member, CJC aims to deepen its access to independent market insights and support its mission to help clients improve control, reduce complexity, and optimise mission-critical market data environments.
Jack Gidding, Chief Executive Officer at STAC, said, “We’re pleased to formally welcome CJC into the STAC community. I’ve known the team for many years and have great respect for the technical depth and practical engineering expertise they bring. Their involvement will strengthen industry dialogue around market data platforms, performance standards, and evolving infrastructure models.”
Paul Gow, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at CJC, said, “Our engineers operate at the intersection of market data distribution, governance, and infrastructure performance every day. Through STAC, we can contribute that practical, real-world experience to industry discussions while also benefiting from access to independent benchmarking frameworks and peer-level technical dialogue. Maintaining visibility into evolving performance standards and infrastructure trends is critical to delivering informed, vendor-agnostic advice to our clients.”
About Crown Jewel Consultants (CJC)
Crown Jewels Consultant Ltd (CJC) is the leading market data technology consultancy and service provider for the global financial markets. CJC delivers award-winning consultancy, managed services, cloud solutions, observability, and professional commercial management services for mission-critical market data systems. As a vendor-agnostic and ISO 27001-certified company, CJC enables its partners the freedom to focus on their core business.
About STAC
Strategic Technology Analysis Center (STAC) provides independent, evidence‑based insight to help financial institutions and technology providers make informed technology decisions. The organisation conducts rigorous, vendor‑neutral research and develops industry‑standard benchmarks through the STAC Benchmark Council, a global community of financial firms and technology vendors. Its work focuses on performance measurement and technology evaluation in areas such as market data processing, real‑time analytics, risk computation, and AI‑related workloads.
Proven CJC expertise in real-time market data platforms
LONDON, March 9, 2026 – WatersTechnology, the leading financial market technology information provider, has announced that Kirti Katiyar, Cloud Engineer at CJC, has been named “Engineer/Programmer of the Year” at the 2026 Women in Technology & Data Awards. The award recognises her exceptional contribution to modernising how real-time market data distribution platforms are engineered, deployed, and operated in cloud environments.
Over the past 12 months, Kirti has delivered significant advancements in deployment automation for market data distribution platforms across AWS and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). She has been instrumental in designing and implementing robust deployment pipelines using GitLab, alongside more recent work exploring GitHub-based pipelines. These improvements have materially reduced manual deployment effort while increasing consistency, traceability, and reliability across environments. Her work has helped establish a new internal standard for how market data platforms are deployed and maintained at CJC, enabling teams to deliver changes faster and with greater confidence.
Operational resilience and auditability are critical in high-availability market data environments. Kirti combined deep expertise in real-time market data with a cloud-native mindset, proactively identifying inefficiencies in release and deployment processes and designing solutions that addressed root causes. She improved platform stability, scalability, and long-term sustainability while reducing deployment risks. Her impact extends beyond technical delivery into collaboration and capability building. She is recognised for her supportive, practical approach, regularly sharing expertise and explaining complex cloud and market data concepts in clear terms that raise confidence across teams.
Kirti has supported financial firms globally as part of CJC’s 24/7 team of market data experts for almost ten years. This year’s award is the second time her cloud engineering expertise has been recognised at the Women in Technology & Data Awards by WatersTechnology, previously named 2024’s Consultant of the Year. The Women in Technology & Data Awards celebrate and promote the achievements of women in technology and data roles within the capital markets, honouring winners across more than 30 categories.
Reacting to her latest award, Kirti said, “I’m deeply grateful for this award, and for the opportunities CJC provides to innovate and grow. Advancing cloud-native approaches for market data platforms has been incredibly rewarding, and I look forward to contributing further to our engineering vision.”
Bill Reynolds, Global Head of Engineering at CJC, adds, “Kirti combines deep real-time market data expertise with advanced cloud automation capabilities to modernise and streamline platform delivery. Through CI/CD pipeline design and cloud engineering across AWS and GCP, she has materially reduced manual deployment effort while enhancing scalability, stability, and long-term sustainability.”
Peter Williams, Chief Technology Officer at CJC, added that “we operate at the heart of global financial markets, delivering round-the-clock technical market data management where failure is not an option. Our approach combines specialist experience, knowledge, accountability, and performance engineering at scale.”
About Crown Jewel Consultants (CJC)
Crown Jewels Consultant Ltd (CJC) is the leading market data technology consultancy and service provider for the global financial markets. CJC delivers award-winning consultancy, managed services, cloud solutions, observability, and professional commercial management services for mission-critical market data systems. As a vendor-agnostic and ISO 27001-certified company, CJC enables its partners the freedom to focus on their core business.
About Waters Technology
WatersTechnology, part of Infopro Digital Group, fosters dialogue on IT advancements and the issues facing buy- and sell-side financial technologists across the wholesale investment banking community, while also providing capital-markets technology and data news, analysis, and research. It is made up of the editorial teams and publications under the WatersTechnology portfolio: Waters, Buy-Side Technology, Sell-Side Technology, Inside Market Data, and Inside Reference Data.
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