Meertec
Pre-Deal
Technical & Data Due Diligence
Independent assessment of technology estate, data assets and AI maturity ahead of investment, with a clear view of cost, risk and value-creation headroom.
Learn more →AI · Executive Transformation · Private Equity
Executive Transformation & AI Advisory for Private Equity
Dr Stephen D. Jones
Engaged directly by Boards, CEOs and Private Equity investors for deal theses; diligence, value creation plans, hold periods and exits.
Track record, by engagement
Value ledger
Headline totals are rolled up across the engagements that delivered them, reported against the work that earned each figure.
-
Bain Capital · FedEx/TNT
EBITDA improvement across two engagements
- £30M+ EBITDA improvement at Kantar Media (PE-backed carve-out)
- £30M+ EBITDA improvement across the FedEx/TNT acquisition
- 800+ apps rationalised at Kantar Media (with 20% cloud cost reduction); 2,000+ apps at FedEx/TNT
- API landscape reduced by 75%, month-end reporting compressed from weeks to days (FedEx/TNT)
-
Opus 2 (Astorg & Five Arrows)
Interim CTO, international LegalTech platform
- $70M+ revenue platform; retained after delivery metrics declined
- AWS cloud operating costs reduced by 30%
- Deployment cycles compressed from 90 days to 2 days
- AI-assisted delivery adopted (Copilot and Claude)
-
PIF / NEOM
Enterprise data & AI operating models
- $30M opportunity identified
- Production Data Mesh in 6 months
- Team of 40 specialists built from inception
- Leadership partnership across 14 sectors
-
Providence · Marlink
Group digital capability & efficiency roadmap
- $550M satellite communications group
- 5 business units, 30 countries
- ERP roadmap: Dynamics to D365
- Group reporting simplified by consolidating SAP installations
-
HSBC
Governance & operating model transformation
- 450 architects, four geographies (UK, US, India, China)
- Full FCA/PRA compliance held
- FCA agreement secured on the DevOps approach and quality processes
-
CSC (now DXC Technology) · UK Government
Critical national infrastructure
- £2.5Bn National Identity Consortium
- £400M Passport Service transformation
- AI-enabled fraud detection in CNI
What Meertec Does
Advisory across the PE lifecycle
Engagements are structured to the deal thesis, not a standard transformation template: retained, interim or advisory, from first diligence call to exit narrative.
100-Day Plan
Operating Model & Carve-Out Design
TSA/CSA planning, target operating model design and separation architecture, sized to the deal thesis rather than a generic transformation template.
Learn more →Hold Period
Interim CDAO / CIO / CTO
Retained executive leadership of technology and data functions during the hold period: stabilising delivery, resetting vendor relationships and rebuilding engineering credibility.
Learn more →Hold Period
AI & Data Operating Models
Design and stand-up of production data and AI capability (Data Mesh, governance and commercial data products) built for adoption, not slideware.
Learn more →Hold Period
Get Fit: IT Organisation Diagnostic
A structured evaluation of the IT organisation against the value creation plan: people, process, technology, data, AI and cyber scored against a consistent maturity scale, with a clear, sequenced view of the changes needed to deliver.
Methodology →Value Creation
Cost & Estate Rationalisation
Application and cloud estate rationalisation, FinOps discipline and vendor renegotiation, converting technical debt directly into EBITDA.
Learn more →Exit
Exit & Readiness Advisory
Technology and data narrative for sale processes, buyer diligence support and separation planning for carve-out or trade exits.
Learn more →Executive Expertise
Six disciplines, one operating view
Boardroom strategy and operational delivery, held under one operating view.
Boardroom strategy
01
Transformation & Technology Strategy
Leading technology-enabled transformation through strategy, architecture, operating models, information management and executive advisory, aligning technology investment with organisational and commercial objectives.
02
Commercial Transformation & Value Creation
Delivering large-scale transformation, integration and organisational change, combining commercial leadership, investment optimisation and governance to realise measurable business value.
03
Governance, Risk & Executive Leadership
Board and executive engagement, governance, assurance and regulatory leadership across FCA/PRA, GDPR, AI governance, NIST, OWASP and GRC within highly regulated environments.
Operational delivery
04
Data, AI & Digital
Defining data and AI strategies spanning GenAI, Agentic AI, RAG, GraphRAG, Data Mesh, MLOps and AI governance, transforming information into scalable operational and commercial capability.
05
Platforms, Cloud & Modernisation
Modernising technology platforms through Azure, AWS, Lakehouse architectures, streaming platforms, DevOps, FinOps and cloud optimisation to improve resilience, agility and cost efficiency.
06
Strategy & Execution
Strategy built to be executed and proven by delivery, across retained multi-year engagements, so each cycle of strategy and delivery sharpens the next, aspiration honed by operational reality.
Representative Engagements
Trusted by Boards and Executive Teams
-
Bain Capital
Post-acquisition transformation, Kantar Media
-
HSBC
Architecture governance & DevOps transformation
-
FedEx / TNT
Acquisition technology strategy & integration
-
BBC
Enterprise architecture, technology carve-out
-
Kantar
CTO, post-acquisition transformation
-
NEOM
Sovereign data strategy & architecture (NEOS)
-
UK Government
National Identity Consortium, Passport Service
-
Astorg / Five Arrows
CTO advisory, Opus 2 LegalTech ($70M+ revenue)
-
Providence
Digital capability roadmap, Marlink Group ($550M)
-
CSC (now DXC Technology)
CTO, EMEA infrastructure & CNI programmes
Career
Experience, condensed
-
2013 – Present
Interim Chief Data & AI Officer / CIO/CTO Advisory
UK / EMEA / APAC
-
2013 – Present
Founder
Meertec: Enterprise Technology & Innovation
-
2011 – 2013
Solution & Strategy Director, Asia Pacific & Japan
Hewlett-Packard
$250M global cloud services engagement secured with Samsung; $50M+ in new services business enabled. Pre-deal technical and strategic leadership across China, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan.
-
2007 – 2010
CTO / Solution Director
CSC (now DXC Technology), Government & Business Services Portfolio
£100M annual portfolio; 400 specialists on work requiring UK DV-level security clearance. CTO of the £2.5Bn National Identity Consortium and directed the £400M Passport Service transformation.
-
2006 – 2007
Chief Architect
Steria: Criminal Justice IT
£90M criminal justice transformation programme, cleared to UK SC level. Enterprise architecture for a national platform integrating 50+ cross-government organisations, serving 400,000 users.
-
2004 – 2006
Programme Architect, Enterprise Transformation
Siemens: BBC IT Carve-Out
Enterprise architecture for the BBC's £1.5Bn ten-year outsourcing contract. Separation strategy for 38,000 users; £16M+ saved through information management transformation and a further £2M annually through supplier renegotiation.
Before The Boardroom
Early career & foundations
Postgraduate research in AI led into early leadership roles spanning financial services, industrial automation and the space sector, the foundations later applied to enterprise data and executive technology leadership.
AXA
Enterprise Architect
Led integration, compliance and technology modernisation within a highly regulated financial services environment.
Alterian
Head of Solution Architecture
Developed a reporting suite for a columnar database, early work in analytical data platforms ahead of the modern data stack.
C-Bridge Internet Solutions
Head of Architecture & Engineering
Directed architecture and engineering for a wealth management platform, establishing scalable technical foundations for financial services clients.
Science Systems Space Division
Head of Mission Planning & Scheduling
Led development of commercial AI applications for mission planning and optimisation within the space sector.
Intelligent Automation Division
Senior AI Consultant
Advised industrial clients on artificial intelligence and real-time control systems, one of the earliest foundations for a career centred on AI-enabled transformation.
Insights
Articles & LinkedIn
A running record of writing on PE value creation, AI operating models and technology transformation.
The IC Is Dead. Long Live the IC.
Agentic AI doesn't make the Hero IC obsolete, it changes what an IC is: from the person who does the work to the person who directs the most capability. On the two futures this creates — an even bigger single point of failure, or an organisational capability builder — and the question technology diligence should now ask.
Don't Let Your Couch Get Stuck on the Stairs
Software engineering has always been optimised for a constraint — the mainframe, then the human developer, and now the LLM's context window. On why AI-readiness is becoming a core dimension of technical due diligence, and why designing code for AI agents may just be good architecture arrived at by another route.
Don't Fight the Fire, Read the Smoke: Why the Best PE Operators Know When to Let Go
Fire Chiefs read Volume, Velocity, Density and Colour before tackling a blaze; the best PE operating partners know that fixating on the fire in front of them loses the peripheral read that shows where the burn is heading. On the Management Uncertainty Principle — you cannot hold micro-detail and a clear view of the horizon at the same time — and why an interim who does the close reading lets the fund stay macro.
Selected Engagements
Get In Touch
Considering a diligence call, an interim mandate,
or a value-creation review?
Prefer the full picture before reaching out?
Download Full CV (PDF)Meertec Ltd, 18 Holly Road, Cove, Farnborough, Hampshire, GU14 0EA, United Kingdom