Brand and digital consultants

Nucleus has prospered for four decades because our talented people flourish in a culture which promotes creative thinking, continuous learning, individual initiative and personal responsibility. This encourages talent to grow without having to ‘move on’ and increases collective experience.

This experience is immensely valuable to our clients and apparent in the way we work. Leadership team members are always engaged as hands-on brand consultants or digital consultants on all client projects. They win and lead our assignments, so the common agency practice of sending a ‘pitch team’ to a pitch who then disappear after the project is won is anathema to us. When we pitch, it is the people who will work on the project who prepare and present our proposals and then go on to engage with our clients to deliver the brand or digital solution.

An unusual feature of Nucleus is our commitment to developing hybrid skills where brand consultants, digital consultants designers and developers have worked closely together for many years, with the effect of blending their strategy, design, IT and IP expertise. As a result, our teams combine seamlessly and add value through insight, talent, technical prowess and commercial experience.

Clients tell us that they value our combination of ‘big ideas’ creativity with evidence-based logic and appreciate our attention to detail, dedication and personal touch. We work in a service industry where the demands get ever more challenging. We have been, and always will be, ready to meet those challenges, because we firmly believe in the talent of our people and the value of our professional reputation. Put simply, we are focussed on making every project better than the last because we all believe we are only ever as good as our last project.

Peter Matthews

Founder & CEO

Peter is Nucleus’ founder and CEO. For nearly forty years he has led the company, advising enterprises large and small on innovation, branding, digital and IP strategy. He also chairs Nucleus’ start-up ventures.

Peter is a ‘big ideas’ designer, who has been able to combine business acumen with creativity throughout his career. While remaining actively involved advising clients on brand, digital and IP assignments, he is also involved in realising value from new and disruptive business models and integrating the creation and protection of intellectual property. His unique perspective reflects his unusually wide experience, spanning the creation of new brands and brand names, to repositioning brands and creating digital ventures - all with an eye that has seen the world through a digital lens since the earliest days of the Internet in 1995.

An advocate of ‘putting your money where your mouth is’, Peter also leads Nucleus’ ventures, where the company invests in its own ideas. Most notable of these is sQuid, now part of Smart Transactions Group, where Nucleus remains the largest shareholder.

He has advised and led complex brand and digital programmes for many leading corporations, including: Aman, Azerai, Corinthia, Crédit Agricole, Dunhill, First Direct, Hamleys, Renault, Rothschild, Sainsbury’s, Superdrug, and Toyota.

Peter has written blogs and thought-pieces, columns and articles for a variety of publications on brand, digital and intellectual property issues. He has also appeared on television as a brand expert on matters ranging from brand naming, to whether Prince Harry helps or hinders the Royal brand.

Adam Smith

SQUID CEO

Adam is a board director of Nucleus and CEO of sQuid, Nucleus’ digital payment's venture which Nucleus remains a major investor. Adam joined Nucleus in 2003 having an extensive background in telecommunications and strategy consulting.

Prior to co-founding sQuid with Peter Matthews, Adam ran Nucleus Managed Services, the managed application and hosting division behind many large websites, including, between 2003-2007, the Oyster customer portal. It was during this time that Adam and Peter conceived sQuid, initially as an e-money network that could run alongside smart transit cards, now evolving into a smart transactions platform that creates digital communities across the UK, Africa and Asia.

While Adam’s main focus is now sQuid, he serves on the boards of Nucleus and Nucleus IP and steps back into his consulting role for some strategic assignments.

Adam was formerly Managing Director of Telewest Business Communications Division, leading it through the transition to delivering sophisticated data and IP solutions for its Business Customers, and creating a successful £300m turnover enterprise prior to Telewest being acquired by Virgin Media.

Before this, he was Strategy Director at Telewest, responsible for a number of high value acquisitions. He joined Telewest from Ernst & Young Management Consultancy, where he worked across many industry sectors, with emphasis on new technologies. Adam began his career in the oil industry, later moving to Volvo Cars, where he was part of the team that initiated the transformation of the Volvo brand during the mid-1990s.

David Gilbert

Head of Brand Consulting

David is Head of Brand Consulting at Nucleus, with extensive experience across many industries and many markets, from Europe to Africa and Asia.

His career has focused on the naming, design and implementation of new brands for start-ups to multinationals. David’s role encompasses brand strategy, brand naming, brand proposition development and project management.

He has been closely associated with a number of long-running client relationships and high profile brand projects whilst at Nucleus. Currently, these include several within financial and professional services in Europe, Africa and Asia.

David was brand advisor for Cable & Wireless for nine years, spanning a range of global brand strategy issues, from brand propositions, brand mergers and acquisitions programmes. He has also worked with The Jéronimo Martins Group (Portugal) on their portfolio of supermarket and retail brands for more than four years. He has worked with Rothschild Private Wealth for the past decade.

David has also led or co-led brand projects for AIG, Coronation Capital, Coronation Merchant Bank, Ede & Ravenscroft, NatWest, OPP, SNOMED International, Superdrug and UPC.

Prior to joining Nucleus, David worked as a design director for Landor and associate design director at Lloyd Northover. He graduated with a BA (Hons) degree from Kingston University and The University of the Arts, London.

Suzanne Lykiard

Creative Director

Suzanne is Nucleus’ Creative Director with over 30 years’ experience across a wide-range of branding, communications and digital programmes.

She is a supremely experienced designer who leads her team with her hands firmly on: practicing her craft day-in, day-out. Her approach is highly innovative, based on the design briefs defined by our strategy team, consistently pushing the envelope in terms of what can be achieved across all media. She encourages her team to explore new ideas without ever compromising the design concept of user-centred design.

Suzanne seeks simplicity and clarity in her design solutions, applying disciplined typography and clear information design with emotive imagery to bring ideas to life.

Over the years, Suzanne’s expertise in design and branding includes major brand programmes for Aman, Azerai, Britax, Clos Apalta, Indosuez, Laing Homes, Rothschild, sQuid, Superdrug, Toyota and VanPeterson.

She has been involved in the development of many successful e-commerce sites and especially those in the luxury travel sector – including Aman, Ballyfin, Corinthia, The Goring and Luxury Explorer.

Her work has won many awards, including: DBA Design Effectiveness Awards, Design Week Awards, Daveys, W3 and several more.

Suzanne graduated with a BA (Hons) in Graphic Design at Middlesex Polytechnic.

Lindsey Cunningham

Adviser

Lindsey is a long-standing adviser to Nucleus on brand and digital projects. Fluent in French and Italian, she contributes to strategic projects for French and Italian clients as well as applying her specialist knowledge in travel e-commerce.

Bringing over 30 years’ experience in account and project management, Lindsey has advised and managed projects for top international brands. For Nucleus, she applies this expertise in varied advisory roles.

Lindsey has applied her advisory experience to a number of Nucleus clients, including AITO, Camping and Caravanning Club, Crédit Agricole, Inntravel and P&O Cruises, helping ensure that all our clients’ business objectives are met by the Nucleus team.

Lindsey's apprenticeship in brand consultancy was at Michael Peters, moving from there to Landor Associates where she became European Marketing Director based in London and Paris.

Lindsey is an Honours Graduate in Psychology from The University of Manchester.

Richard Levy

Head of Technology

Richard is our Head of Technology, whose technical experience spans more than 20 years of internet-related technical design and development.

As Nucleus’ chief technical architect, Richard’s role is to identify and understand clients’ technical requirements and then to devise appropriate technical architectures to support their required levels of functionality. He also leads infrastructure and software procurement studies and tenders.

Unusually, Richard also has considerable experience in the operational Management of Unix, LINUX and Microsoft environments and uses this to our clients’ advantage by identifying practical infrastructure and operational issues, opportunities and constraints early in the design phase of projects. He is often clients’ adviser of choice to troubleshoot and resolve their own technical infrastructure issues.

Richard graduated from Salford University with a BEng in Electronic Computer Systems.

Jonathan Davey

Head of Digital

Jonathan is Head of Digital and leads our digital team at Nucleus. As an experienced digital strategy and usability consultant he brings a strong user-focused approach, combined with excellent technical understanding.

With over 15 years’ digital experience at Nucleus, he is responsible for the delivery of digital solutions that turn engaging user experiences into profitable online transactions.

Whilst at Nucleus, he has led or co-led many successful and high-profile strategic digital assignments including for: Brittany Ferries, CenterParcs, Champneys, Camping & Caravanning Club, Dunhill, Haven Holidays, HSBC, P&O Cruises and Standard Chartered Bank.

Jonathan has been closely involved with the development of the sQuid customer portal and iMlango, as it has developed into a multi-purpose smart transactions platform serving digital communities around the world.

Jonathan has a First Class BSc (Hons) from Manchester University (UMIST) in Management, and an MA in Marketing from Kingston Business School.

Mike Stannard

Finance Director

Mike is Nucleus’ Finance Director and is also Managing Director of Nucleus IP, Nucleus’ intellectual property advisory subsidiary business.

Mike’s position of Managing Director of our intellectual property business means he has a good understanding of trade mark, copyright and design rights law and directs our team of attorneys managing clients’ portfolios large and small. As well as his financial role he also spends time on business development and meeting with clients.

He joined Nucleus IP in 1999 having spent eight years as Practice Manager in a Barristers’ Chambers in the Inner Temple and, before that, seven years in various sales & marketing and finance roles for a commercial stationery company and three years undertaking his training with a firm of Chartered Accountants.

Mike has been a member of Chiltern District Council since 2008 and was appointed to Cabinet as Portfolio Holder for Finance and Resources in 2010 and as Deputy Leader of the Council in 2013.

He was a Non-Executive Director of the Buckinghamshire Building Society for nine years and Chaired the Audit, Compliance and Risk Committee.