Helping CEOs navigate an AI world    

CEO-centric by design

We only have one interest – your success.   We do not sell software. We do not run implementation programmes. We do not recycle generic frameworks.   We do not replace leadership.

Instead, we work as a confidential extension of the CEO, helping you:

  • Set clear strategic intent in the light of AI, grounded in how your organisation actually works

  • Decide what to prioritise, and what not.  Look at both AI for cost reduction and AI for growth.

  • Test assumptions against what is happening in the wider market

  • Retain strategic control once delivery begins, by knowing what to ask

  • Ensure what is delivered reflects your intent, not someone else’s agenda

Engagements are deliberately focused and senior. An initial phase typically runs 30–60 days and is designed to give the CEO clarity, control, and momentum. It typically includes:

  • Rapid strategic diagnostic — where AI genuinely matters to your strategy, cost base, and competitive position

  • Portfolio triage — what to double down on, reshape, or stop

  • Decision framework — investment levels, sequencing, governance, and leadership implications

  • Vendor and technology reality check — equipping you to challenge to architectures, claims, and roadmaps with confidence

  • Executive and Board alignment — clarity on what will change, what will not, the trade-offs involved, and the governance that needs to be in place

Supporting you

Who we are

Matthew Gould

CEO, National-scale Transformation Leader, UK Ambassador

Matthew specialises in leading high-stakes transformation under intense scrutiny. He has delivered national digital infrastructure and citizen-facing platforms used by tens of millions of people, led the multi-billion digital transformation of the NHS, and played a central role in shaping the UK’s AI policy and delivery ecosystem. He brings authority grounded in experience of politics, technology, and public trust — and an understanding of how strategy survives contact with reality.

David Howie

AI, Data & Commercial Strategy Advisor

David focuses on judgement, prioritisation, and maintaining strategic control during execution. A former Chief Commercial Officer at NHSX and Commercial Director at the UK Home Office, he has led national-scale technology investment, procurement, and governance under extreme pressure. He holds doctorates in atomic physics and the history and sociology of science, and is a former technology founder. He is valued as a board-level “technical BS-detector”, ensuring AI agendas are not hijacked by complexity or misplaced expertise.

Advisory Board

Providing strategic challenge and perspective

The Oryx Advisory Board includes:

  • Simon Collins — former Chairman of KPMG, with deep experience advising boards of the world’s largest organisations on strategy, governance, and transformation.

  • Simon Levine — former Global CEO of DLA Piper, bringing expertise in governance, regulation, and complex stakeholder environments.Bottom of Form

Case Studies

The NHS AI Lab

The NHS AI Lab was set up under Matthew’s leadership as a £250m investment - the world’s first national-scale initiative designed to transition AI into frontline clinical practice. It was not a technology project; it was an enterprise strategy challenge. The task was to set clear strategic intent and deliver results across a high-risk, multi-billion-pound ecosystem while managing intense public and political scrutiny. We moved beyond tech-first thinking to ensure AI investments were grounded in how the organization actually worked, and to driving changes in behaviour, systems and culture as well as just technology.

Using AI to Strengthen a Specialist Retailer

 We helped the leadership of a specialist retailer decide what AI should - and should not - be used for. The risk wasn’t falling behind on AI. It was copying others and automating away the human expertise and trust that differentiated the business. We helped the team focus on a simple question: where does AI improve decisions and productivity, and where does it undermine the customer proposition? AI was prioritised for helping staff, taking operational decisions, and providing support in commercial negotiations - and constrained in customer-facing areas where human judgement mattered most. AI stopped being a long list of use cases and became a way of reinforcing the retailer’s specialist advantage.

When to Let the Vendor Drive AI Cost Reduction

We helped senior leaders at a large insurer think through how AI should be used to reduce costs in a heavily outsourced operating model. The temptation was to build AI capability internally. Our judgement was the opposite. Given the organisation’s governance complexity and limited change capacity, doing so would have slowed progress and clogged delivery. We recommended that cost reduction through AI should be driven by the outsourcing partner, with incentives and commercial terms designed to force real outcomes rather than promises.