Board of Directors

Peter Matthews

Peter Matthews is Chairman of Smart Transactions Group and also founder and CEO of Nucleus, the integrated brand, digital and intellectual property consultancy.

Peter has been at the cutting-edge of brand, digital and IP thinking for over 30 years, remaining a hands-on adviser to many global clients in the financial services, luxury and travel sectors. By identifying and realising value creation opportunities where brand and digital innovation can disrupt existing business models, Peter has also practiced what he preaches, including co-founding next-generation payments platform, sQuid, in 2005.

Having led Nucleus since its inception in 1979 through four decades of change, his business experience is exceptionally wide and includes: start-ups, M&A, trade sales, an MBO, divestments, corporate restructuring and many private fundraisings.

Peter was instrumental in creating Smart Transactions Group in 2011 and also in the divestment of ACT to Fujitsu in August 2015, in order that STG should focus all its efforts on developing its sQuid digital financial inclusion platform.
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Duncan McNeil

Originally independent, Duncan founded ASE Consulting in 1987, which he ran for 25 years and grew into a successful business and technology consulting practice with many high-profile clients. In addition to ASE, Duncan has been responsible for establishing many other start-ups in different sectors, including Applied Card Technologies, which was previously part of our group.
 

Duncan currently holds a number of board positions with innovative technology companies, several where he is also an investor. Of note are Clinithink, an AI company focusing on precision medicine and clinical trials; SNOMED International, an international non-profit organisation delivering “the most comprehensive and precise clinical health terminology product in the world”; and, his most recent venture, Anthropos Digital Care, a Connected Care Platform seeking to dramatically change the delivery of care at home using AI techniques.

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Adam Smith

Adam Smith is a board director of Smart Transactions Group and co-founder and CEO of sQuid.

He, together with Peter Matthews, conceived sQuid during his time at Nucleus, and has subsequently led the business from incubation through to operational delivery of sQuid's digital financial inclusion platform.

Adam’s background is in telecoms - he was the Managing Director of the Telewest cable operator’s Business Telecommunications Division (prior to becoming part of VirginMedia) leading that business through turnaround and the challenges of creating broadband services to the business marketplace. Prior to this role he was Telewest’s Strategy Director. His earlier commercial experience encompassed several industries, as well as strategy consultancy with LEK and Ernst and Young.

Adam’s experience of working within complex industries, building high service business models and creating new services has been instrumental in successfully developing sQuid as a financial inclusion playtform. "If you think of smart transactions as the movement of data over telecoms networks, it’s a good start to building a disruptive business model in payments" he says. But above all, he thinks that two things are required – a bit of luck, and a great team of people to work with.

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John Holland

John Holland is a board director of Smart Transactions Group and is a founder angel investor and board director of sQuid.

He is a seasoned senior banker/broker, having spent all his 24 years in investment banking with the UBS/SBC/SG Warburg Group. He brings to Smart Transactions a wide range of finance, fundraising and deal structuring skills, as well as extensive experience of Asian and other Emerging Markets.

John is a proven builder of profitable businesses from the bottom up - both regional and functional. He has also managed large groups of more than 500 staff across many countries in both Asia and Europe. As part of his various roles at UBS, he planned and executed major technology-led change programmes across multi-time zones with significant positive results on both business performance and profitability. He has experience over more than two decades of working with Financial Regulators in Europe (the UK's FSA and the European Commission) and Asia (China, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore) on major regulatory change programmes.

John currently acts in a range of complementary non-executive board and consultancy roles: he is Director of New Energy Solar, (a large-scale solar power provider listed on the Australian Stock Exchange) and chairs both Open Door Capital Management (a Greater China Asset Management company) and KCG Europe (an electronic brokerage which is part of the Virtu Financial Group).

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