About us

How it began

After founding and scaling rental marketplace onefinestay Greg sold out to Accor in 2016. So what does a successful entrepreneur do next? He was waiting on hold with British Gas.
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With time on his hands at last, he noticed he’d been ‘accidentally’ moved onto the wrong tariff. Now on track to pay thousands more than he should, Greg saw red. How many others had fallen prey to something similar?
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Turns out, it’s happening to almost everybody. Miss a single email, and you get screwed over. The Citizens Advice Bureau found that 8 out of 10 UK households overpay for their utilities: energy, broadband, mobile. When you include TV, insurance, credit cards and mortgages, the typical UK household busy with children is being done out of more than £1,000 a year. With a cost-of-living crisis mounting, is it really fair that households bear the brunt?

In 2020, Greg caught Covid. While he was lying in bed shivering, his wife went into early labour with their second child. On his own in the darkness, he waited anxiously for news from the hospital. Then, finally, the phone rang. It was British Gas.
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That’s when it hit him: none of us should be left to deal with the rising cost of living or fighting with the British Gases of the world all alone in the dark. When we’re isolated as individuals, big companies take advantage. But if as householders we had tech to help us club together, get smart and stay vigilant – it would change a game that's been rigged against us.
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A few days later, reunited with his family, Greg got to hold his baby daughter for the first time. And in between the naps and the nappies, he started speaking to people he knew – people who could build things, people who could change things...

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Our leadership team

Greg Marsh

CO-FOUNDER & CEO

Formerly a venture capital investor with Index Ventures in London, in 2009 Greg founded pioneering luxury accommodation marketplace onefinestay, which he led from inception through to acquisition by Accor Hotels in 2016 in a deal worth more than $200m. Greg has since taught at Harvard Business School, and served on the boards of several organisations including Amnesty International. He studied at Cambridge and HBS where he was a Fulbright Scholar and Ford Scholar.

Christian Hølmer

CO-FOUNDER & CTO

Prior to joining Nous Christian spent 3 years at Facebook, honing his engineering leadership and understanding the secret sauce of Big Tech. A serial entrepreneur at heart, he launched his first SaaS startup in 2007 before co-founding companies including Billetto, the ticketing platform, and Represented by Bloggers Delight, the influencer marketing network. He was also interim CTO for high-growth London startups like Tails.com and Cake Technologies, which were acquired by Nestlé Purina and American Express respectively. Christian studied Software Technology at the Technical University of Denmark.

Lydia Howland

HEAD OF SERVICE DESIGN

After an eleven year stint as a design and innovation consultant at IDEO, Lydia joined Greg and Glen at onefinestay as Head of Service Product Development. She went on to work with a number of London-based start-ups and digital organisations, including Klevio, Tails and GDS, before becoming Head of User Research at Deliveroo. Lydia studied English Literature and Critical Theory at Cardiff University; to wit, she knows how to use a semicolon.

Jon Rudoe

CO-FOUNDER & CCO

Jon has over 20 years’ experience in consumer businesses. He was Digital & Technology Director at Sainsbury’s where he scaled Online from £700m to £1.3bn in 2½ years, and launched several new businesses including Chop Chop and SmartShop. Prior to that he led the team that built the customer proposition at Ocado during the early scale-up phase. Jon started his career at Bain and technology investment firm, Smedvig. He has an MA from Cambridge and an MBA with High Distinction from Harvard Business School.

Glen Walker

CO-FOUNDER & COO

After stints at BNEF and McKinsey, Glen worked with Greg at onefinestay in a variety of senior roles before going on to co-found Trouva, the successful online homewares marketplace, where he was Chief Operating Officer and latterly Chief Growth Officer. Glen has an MA and MEng from Cambridge University.