Financial data analytics company First Derivatives (FD) has announced the appointment of Alan Coad as Chief Revenue Officer for Kx, the FD’s ultra-high-performance analytics software business. He will report directly to Seamus Keating, FD’s Chief Executive Officer.

In this role, Alan will have global responsibility for Kx sales with a focus on accelerating the expansion of the Kx streaming analytics platform into other industries, building on its strength in financial services. He brings a track record of growth and value creation at large, publicly-traded technology companies as well as early-stage, venture-backed businesses. Alan has been at the forefront of digital transformation and cloud journeys for many Fortune 500 companies, which is highly relevant to FD’s growth ambitions.

Alan joins FD from Google where he was Managing Director for Google Cloud in the UK and Ireland. Prior to this, he headed the EMEA region for Pivotal Software, a cloud native and data modernisation platform pioneer. In both roles, Alan was credited with building exceptional teams and a customer-centric sales culture. He also helped shape many important global client partnerships and delivered significant growth – evidenced by Pivotal’s successful IPO in 2018 and subsequent acquisition by VMware.

“It’s a terrific time to be joining FD,” said Alan Coad. “Over the past decade I have had a front-row seat for many of the transformational changes being driven in tier one enterprises across various industries. Data has now come to the fore as a differentiator and source of new value for many of these businesses. With the Kx technology platform, we can unlock this vast market opportunity, helping organisations across many industries transform into intelligent enterprises leveraging the power of real-time and historical data.”

Seamus Keating, CEO of FD, commented:

“We are delighted to welcome Alan to the FD leadership team. He brings almost three decades of enterprise software experience, including important domain expertise in cloud, SaaS, application and data modernisation as well as digital transformation. He is an accomplished business leader with an impressive track record for delivering revenue growth while also demonstrating a shared passion for nurturing an open, inclusive culture that values our people, our customers and our partners.”