'All about people': How ROW4MND's Matthew Parker is making waves with cyber security firm expanding into Leeds

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Matthew Parker is juggling an extraordinary four-year charity challenge with aiming to turn the cyber security firm he leads into a £250m revenue business. Chris Burn reports.

He’s been making waves – and national headlines – as part of a four-man endurance rowing team raising millions for charity but Matthew Parker has also got keeping him busy on dry land.

Parker is part of the four-year ROW4MND global challenge which shot to prominence for unexpected reasons last year after MP Rupert Lowe accused them of being potential ‘illegal migrants’ and called the Coastguard after they were spotted on the water off his constituency of Great Yarmouth.

But he is also an experienced business leader who now leads cyber security specialist Xypher as its CEO. The company, which is backed by private equity firm Limerston Capital, has recently opened a new office in the Platform building in Leeds as part of its ongoing expansion plans.

While he grew up in Scotland and now lives in Surrey, Parker says the opening of the Leeds office was something of a homecoming for him.

“Despite my accent. I have multiple connections to Leeds,” he explains. “My mum was born and brought up in Headingley. My mum and dad went to Leeds University and met at Leeds University, and their first home was in Leeds. There's always been a connection and it does always feels a little bit like coming home. I would be being slightly disingenuous if I said that was the primary reason that we chose Leeds, but it was a really easy decision when Leeds was suggested. The actual reason we picked Leeds was down to the talent that we were able to hire there.”

Parker says there is growing demand for the company’s services as businesses become increasingly aware of the dangers posed by cyber criminals, following high-profile attacks on the likes of Marks & Spencer, Co-op and Jaguar Land Rover which cost the companies involved hundreds of millions of pounds.

"We help people keep things secure that they've spent a long time and a lot of effort building,” he says. “Around 40 per cent of UK businesses reckon they had some sort of cyber-attack in the last 12 months. We're working with organisations to help keep the things that are important to them secure.

"Doing that is all about people. I’d love to tell you there is a much cleverer answer but it is about having brilliant people working in situations where they’re asking questions of all the time, stress-testing systems and who can explain how you're going to do things better.

"Most cyber-crime isn’t down to tech, it is down to a person making a bad decision about sharing a piece of information. If cyber-security is not a board level agenda item already, if you don't have a problem now, you'll have a problem very soon.”

While most of the company’s work is centred around helping businesses improve their cyber security, Xpyher also does digital forensics work for police forces and defence barristers.

He says the company played a part in the so-called ‘Jaws of Life Gang’ case in which a group of criminals were breaking into cash machines using equipment normally reserved for the firefighters to rescue people trapped in car crashes.

"One of the people that was connected to it got stopped by the police for a road traffic thing, and his mobile device came to us. One of our forensic team did a piece of work on it, and we were able to identify where the phone had been.

"We're able to get a video off the phone that showed the house and the car that had been involved in the robberies and connect all of those things. You are trying to do your bit in terms of justice being served.”

Parker, who took over as CEO in January following the company making a series of acquisitions last year as part of a ‘buy-and-build’ strategy, says Xypher now has around 200 staff, with about one-third based in Yorkshire at its sites in Doncaster and Leeds.

He says the new Leeds sales office “is the start of a model that we think we can go and replicate in lots and lots of cities across the UK”.

Parker, who has extensive experience in scaling up technology-related businesses, says he believes he can take the business from a current annual revenue figure of around £20m to turnover of £250m through a combination of organic growth and further acquisitions.

"We want to be the UK's leading AI augmented cyber security services business in three years' time,” he says. "In terms of achieving £250m, time will definitely answer that question. There’s a lot to do, there are a lot of moving parts and it is still an industry that is is still relatively small in the UK."

He is combining a busy work schedule with the ongoing ROW4MND project. The challenge, which has already raised £150,000 towards the fight to find a cure for Motor Neurone Disease, has already seen the team complete two rows around the British Isles, with an Arctic leg next year and the final route between New York and London scheduled for 2028.

It is the latest and most adventurous charity challenge that Parker has participated in for MND research after the death of a friend’s wife from the disease in 2017.

"The time on the boat is probably the favourite thing that I've done in my life. There are other people on the boat, but you're isolated in the extreme. You can't get off and you’ve got to solve problems. We want to raise enough money to have a material impact on the amount of research that goes on.”

He says balancing the intense challenge with the demands of running a business requires plenty of planning, as well as early-morning starts for training before work.

“You've just got to find a way of making those things happen. My annual leave this year is me going rowing, but my family also recognise that I'm doing something that's really important to me and is making a difference.”

I'm incredibly fortunate with the people that I'm in the boat with who are some of the you know some of the greatest human beings that that I've ever met. I'm a better person than I was coming off the boat. Each time I go away, and I learn about myself.”

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