Prior to joining Kx Charles Skelton was the owner of and principal consultant at Skelton Consulting GmbH, a product development and software consulting company specialising in financial markets technology. Skelton has been working closely with Kx for a number of years; his company's focus was on advanced market data capture and analytics using Kx's kdb+. Skelton has expertise in writing feed handlers, as well as in-depth experience in setting up very large, high-performance, infrastructure market data systems for tier one banks. Skelton's responsibilities will include working with Kx's development team on product development, enhancement and support, focusing on new features; he has a proactive style and intends to be in regular and close contact with Kx's client base.

Dalton will relinquish his current position of CTO at the end of October, but will remain with Kx in a consultancy capacity. This new role will allow Dalton greater flexibility to pursue some of his other technology and personal interests.

Says Janet Lustgarten, CEO of Kx: "I am delighted that Charles is joining us. We have been working with him for many years so he has an intimate knowledge of kdb+ and q, and already knows many of our clients. Having been a client of Kx Charles has been on the ‘other side of the fence' and has a great deal of insight into what our clients need from us. It is great to have Charles as part of our team, and I'm very much looking forward to working with him even more closely than before. I would also like to thank Niall for all of his fantastic work at Kx. Niall has always made it clear that he had other interests outside of Kx that he wished to pursue at some stage and I am pleased for him that he is now taking the time to do so.
Importantly, his leadership in creating a community environment within Kx has and will continue to be of tremendous benefit to our clients."

Skelton spent ten years in the telecoms industry as a consultant developing real-time software for large multinationals before moving into technology for financial institutions. During his many years in this market Skelton has assisted numerous institutions such as JP Morgan, HypoVereinsbank and Deutsche Bank with their deployment of kdb+. He has provided consultancy to firms based in the US, Germany, the UK and Spain.

"I was fortunate to have worked with Kx on kdb+ applications for a number of years and have been an active member of the Kx community, often presenting at the annual Kx conferences. I am very excited with this opportunity to be more involved with Kx and to use my expertise for the benefit of all Kx clients," Skelton says.