Veteran Data Exec Jeff Parker Joins Wall Street Horizon Advisory Board

In his role as advisor, Parker will give strategic advice to help Wall Street Horizon focus its efforts and hone its product strategy, including exploring potential uses for the vendor's platform outside financial services.

"One of the things I've been doing with them is saying ‘Take a step back and ask what are we good at, and what else can we do with what we're good at?'" Parker says. "I think they have some great opportunities in the corporate world and in verticals they've never approached because they are so good at collecting data─for example, the medical industry, which is very data-intensive."

Parker also helps WSH president Bruce Fador─who worked for Parker years ago at First Call, and considers Parker a mentor─on structuring deals to ensure a "win-win" situation for all parties. "We have a lot of trust in each other and how we get things done," Fador says.

"As a strategic advisor, Jeff can help on multiple levels.... It's about having someone you can call to say ‘What do you think?' without having to spend a lot of time to bring them up to speed," Fador says. "He helps us figure out what else the business is capable of, and how we can grow it."

Working with events data is in some ways coming full circle for Parker, who founded broker research and earnings estimates provider First Call in 1983 before selling it to Thomson Financial in 1986 and becoming chairman and CEO. He later co-founded CCBN and corporate event data platform StreetEvents, before selling that to Thomson Financial in 2004.

Along with him joining the advisory board, Parker has also made an undisclosed investment in WSH. In addition, Parker says he is involved with around 20 early-stage companies as an advisor or investor, and is also a venture partner at venture capital firm GrandBanks Capital.

"When I invest in a company, I'm thinking about whether it is interesting and has potential to deliver a return─typically with a horizon of three years on the short end, or five years on the long end... and that is often driven by the leadership of a company wanting to take some liquidity. So I can help them accelerate growth. I don't do that for every company─in some cases, I'm a silent partner," he says.