The Team Behind the Intelligence

Chris Light serves as Chief Finance Officer at Janes, where he leads global financial and legal operations to ensure the organisation’s continued growth as the independent source for defence and national security intelligence.

Since joining Janes in 2020, he has  strengthened financial performance, operational discipline, and investment alignment—ensuring the organisation is well-positioned to scale its data, technology, and expertise to meet evolving customer needs.

Chris brings more than 20 years’ experience in financial leadership roles across information-led businesses. Before Janes, he held senior positions at Informa, including Chief Financial Officer of its Intelligence division, and was previously Group Financial Controller at UBM plc.

He began his career in assurance at EY, developing a strong foundation in financial governance and performance management.

Chris is focused on enabling sustainable business growth while maintaining the financial rigour required to support mission-critical intelligence delivery.

As Chief Marketing Officer at Janes, Heather leads global marketing and communications. In this role, she is responsible for shaping market engagement, amplifying the Janes brand, and driving growth across the defence, intelligence, and national security communities.

Since joining Janes in 2025, she has focused on driving data-informed marketing strategies that expand global reach, deepen customer engagement, and position Janes to support evolving mission requirements.

Heather brings extensive marketing and communications leadership experience, with a strong track record of building high-impact brands across defence, intelligence, and federal markets. Before joining Janes, she served as Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Noblis and has held senior leadership roles at Northrop Grumman, KeyW (now Jacobs), CSC (now DXC Technologies), and ARINC (now Collins Aerospace).

She is focused on ensuring Janes brand, voice, and go-to-market execution clearly communicate the value of its intelligence offerings and enable customers to assess threats, accelerate decisions, and anticipate change with confidence.

Randy Nixon is Janes U.S. President and Chief Customer Officer. He joined Janes in 2025 following more than 30 years of distinguished service with the U.S. government, including senior roles in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the U.S. Army.

As U.S. President, he drives operational excellence and growth across the U.S. defence and intelligence communities and defence industrial base. Randy focuses on aligning Janes intelligence capabilities to real-world mission requirements, equipping customers with the clarity and confidence they need when it matters most.

As Chief Customer Officer, Randy leads Janes customer-centric strategy, ensuring evolving customer needs shape product innovation, service delivery, and strategic partnerships.

Before joining Janes, Randy led the Intelligence Community’s Open-Source Enterprise, where he was responsible for unclassified collection, dissemination, and analysis across all 19 agencies. He also helped pioneer the CIA’s application of artificial intelligence to intelligence analysis.

Randy is a recipient of the Langer Award, the CIA Directorate of Analysis’ highest honour, as well as the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal. Throughout his career, he has led and contributed to analytic efforts focused on regional conflict, instability, and complex security challenges, bringing deep operational expertise to intelligence-driven decision making.

Randy is focused on expanding Janes in the U.S., with the goal of equipping defence and national security leaders with the information they need to move quickly and confidently from data to decision.

Rob Veal serves as Chief Content and Data Officer at Janes, where he leads the global research, data, and analysis team in delivering validated defence and national security intelligence to government, industry, and mission partners.

He brings more than two decades of experience at Janes, having held a range of roles across the organisation since joining in 2001. Under his leadership, Janes has expanded and refined its proven tradecraft to incorporate advanced technology and analytical techniques, enabling the continued evolution of Janes coverage.

Throughout his tenure, he has played a key role in strengthening the depth, structure, and application of Janes intelligence, ensuring it not only remains relevant, but anticipates the needs of defence and national security customers.

Rob is focused on ensuring his teams continue to deliver validated intelligence that makes a meaningful difference to customers, equipping them to make more informed decisions quickly and confidently across defence and national security missions.

Seth Drewry serves as Chief Operations Officer at Janes, where he leads operational strategy and execution to support the organisation’s continued growth and delivery of validated defence intelligence.

He brings more than two decades of experience at Janes, having held a wide range of roles since originally joining in 2003. His deep understanding of the business and its operations has enabled him to contribute to the development and delivery of major strategic programmes across the organisation.

Throughout his tenure, he has played a key role in strengthening Janes operational effectiveness, enabling the evolution of the organisation into a robust, high-performing business aligned to customer and mission needs.

Seth is focused on ensuring Janes operates with the discipline and agility needed to support its customers and empower teams across the organisation to deliver consistent, high-quality outcomes.

Sheetal Shah is Chief Legal and Compliance Officer at Janes, where she leads the legal, risk, and compliance function in support of the organisation’s continued growth as the independent source for defence and national security intelligence.

She brings extensive global legal leadership experience across data and information businesses. Before joining Janes, she spent a decade at RELX Plc, serving as Head of Legal across a number of its divisions, including Accuity, Cirium, and Estates Gazette, where she led international legal teams in highly regulated environments.

Since joining Janes, Sheetal has strengthened corporate governance and compliance frameworks, ensuring the organisation delivers its strategy in line with the highest legal and regulatory standards.

Sheetal is focused on building and maintaining robust legal and compliance foundations that enable scalable growth, while partnering closely with the business to support the delivery of strategic priorities.