About Us

Andy Dewhurst

Non-executive chairman

Julian Sawyer

Managing Director

Andy spent more than 25 years with Tesco, working across a range of business divisions including Retailing, Banking, Telecoms and Joint Ventures.

As the CEO of Tesco Telecoms and Tesco Mobile, and previously the Founding Director of Tesco Bank (formerly Tesco Personal Finance), he created some of the world’s leading Retailing Services businesses.

His early career was spent in the core Tesco business holding Director level roles in Fresh Food, Trading and Property Services.

Andy also has vast experience of working with business start-ups and growing them into highly profitable organisations. He is a member of the Institute of Directors and actively involved in Charity fundraising with Action Medical Research.

Julian has an extensive background in retail, financial services and business consultancy.

As well as being a business consultant, Julian has extensive experience in setting up and running consultancy businesses in the UK.

A specialist in the cards and payments industry, Julian has worked with clients to deliver new product development and large scale change, and was instrumental in delivering award-winning card products for Asda, Marks & Spencer and BarclayCard.

Julian has held positions at Accenture and Ernst & Young and holds a BA Hons in Business Studies from Portsmouth University.

Erick O'Connor

Director

Adrian Burholt

Director

Erick has more than 25 years’ experience working in the mobile and telecoms industry.

He was Chief Operating Officer, and founder member, of DotDash, the first pan-European MVNO for corporate business customers. Prior to this he was Business Development Director at Inktomi Corporation until its sale to Yahoo! In 2002.

He has also held senior commercial and product management positions at Motorola’s global GSM Infrastructure Group, having started his career with Cable and Wireless plc in 1985.

A Chartered Engineer, Erick holds an MBA from the University of Bath and graduated from the City University with a BSc in Electrical and Electronic Engineering in 1990.

Adrian is an IT and Telecommunications professional who specialises in business strategy and proposition development and delivery.

His experience spans across many facets of the telecoms industry, holding positions at Cable and Wireless and Vodafone.

He has worked in a variety of roles covering handset manufacture, infrastructure, distribution, service provision and network, through to service marketing, strategy, consumer and enterprise proposition development and delivery.

A true innovator, he was co-creator of Vodafone Live! (the first mobile multi-media proposition) and the award winning ‘Vodafone Simply’. Latterly, he was a co-founder and chief executive of The Key Revolution, an award-winning revenue-generating cloud computing business.

Adrian holds a BSc in Electronic Engineering from the University of Kent.

Miles Cheetham

Director

Matt Simester

Head of Cards & Payments

Miles has extensive experience in strategy and customer proposition development having worked as a senior executive in the telecoms industry before following a career first in an award-winning start-up and latterly consulting for major corporations.

His expertise has been gained through working with device manufacturers, service providers and mobile networks since the emergence of the mobile industry. During his time at Vodafone Group, Miles was initially responsible for Consumer and Business Channel Marketing, later leading the Enterprise Commercial Innovation Team, and delivered a multi-billion valued portfolio of new concepts including mobile advertising and mobile broadband. In recent years he has developed a deep interest in the emerging field of Digital Identity.

Miles was also a co-founder and CMO at The Key Revolution, a secure cloud computing start-up, winning numerous awards and accolades from the FT, Sunday Telegraph, Independent and Sky News as cutting edge British technology.

Miles holds a BA (Hons) in Geography from the University of Liverpool.

Matt has more than 20 years of experience in the cards and payments industry. Prior to joining the Piran team,  he was a Managing Director within a leading Payments Consulting practice. His expertise covers payments strategy, partnership development, product development, retail payments and benchmarking. His experience covers the UK, Europe and North America, with clients such as Citi, Discover, Barclaycard, American Express, Amazon, PayPal and O2.

As well as working as a consultant Matt is also an industry practitioner, having previously been Managing Director of Solution Personal Finance (A Barclaycard JV), a founding executive of Barclaycard Partnerships, and Head of Marketing & Planning at the Alliance and Leicester. His reputation has been built on a pragmatic approach to strategy development and execution with a focus on tangible, profitable solutions.

Matt holds A BA Hons in Geography from Anglia Ruskin University.