Reward appoints ex-Mars CDAO Matthew Keylock to lead data push

Reward, the customer engagement and commerce media business operating in more than 15 markets and majority-owned by Nasdaq-listed Rezolve Ai (RZLV), has appointed Matthew Keylock as Chief Data and Analytics Officer. Keylock joins the executive committee with a brief to scale Reward's transaction and behavioural intelligence capabilities and push further into hyper-personalisation and targeting for its bank, brand and retailer clients.

Keylock brings close to three decades of experience in data, analytics and AI. Most recently he served as Global Chief Data and Analytics Officer at Mars Petcare, where he built and led the function across the business. Prior to that he held senior global roles at Yoox Net-A-Porter Group and dunnhumby, the retail data science firm that underpins Tesco's Clubcard loyalty programme.

The role and the rationale

James House, chief executive of Reward, said: "Data and insight are at the heart of Reward and a defining strength of our business. Our transaction intelligence gives us a powerful understanding of consumer behaviour, and Rezolve Ai brings another dimension to how we can innovate around that intelligence. Matt brings an exceptional track record of turning data into commercial value and gives us even more firepower to go further and faster."

Reward's commercial model sits at the intersection of banking and retail, processing transaction data on behalf of financial institutions and converting that insight into targeted loyalty and cashback offers for brands. The company says it has returned more than $2 billion in cashback to consumers to date and has a stated target of $4 billion by 2030. Keylock's appointment is framed as accelerating a higher-growth area the company calls its Finance Media Network, a retail media proposition built on banking transaction data rather than on cookies or browser signals.

Market context

The appointment reflects broader momentum in the bank-led retail media category, where financial institutions are increasingly seeking to monetise first-party transaction data in partnership with specialist platforms. Rival propositions include Cardlytics in the United States, which operates a similar transaction-linked offer model with major US banks, and a number of European challengers building commerce media networks on open-banking data feeds. The category has attracted sustained investment as brand advertisers seek cookieless, high-intent audiences.

Rezolve Ai's ownership of Reward adds an AI-product angle to what has historically been a loyalty and data-services business. The parent company's stated focus on AI-powered commerce suggests Reward may look to embed more sophisticated model-driven personalisation into its platform, though neither company has disclosed a specific product roadmap or timeline. Buyers and investors in this space will be watching for concrete evidence of how Rezolve Ai's AI capabilities translate into measurable uplift over Reward's existing statistical targeting.

From a regulatory standpoint, Reward's cross-border operation across the UK, EU, Middle East and Asia means Keylock will need to navigate a patchwork of data-protection regimes. In the UK, the Data Protection and Digital Information framework continues to evolve post-Brexit, while EU operations remain subject to GDPR and, increasingly, the Digital Markets Act's provisions on data sharing and interoperability. Financial data used for targeting also intersects with sector-specific conduct rules from the FCA in the UK and equivalent regulators in other jurisdictions.