Matchbook has added to its C-suite with the appointment of Alex Gowar as the company’s new chief growth officer.
Gowar takes on the role with the exchange after a career spanning more than 25 years with various tech and betting firms, including a seven-year stint at Betfair in its early days.
The appointment comes after Matchbook soft launched its prediction markets product in the UK at the start of the year.
The UK debut was in preparation for a wider roll out in the US later this year, with a launch scheduled for Q3.
Matchbook, which has supported easyJet’s move into the gambling space, has also helped budget airline launch a prediction markets product.
Gowar spent the last 12 years as founding partner at Hatch House, an advisory firm working with businesses across the media, sport, gaming, betting and fintech sectors.
He also held fractional chief marketing officer roles at trading tech firm Artis and recruitment specialists Elevate Talent between May 2025 and April 2026.
From May 2023 to May 2024, he held the role of chief strategy and marketing officer at DNA Payments Group.
Prior to that, Gowar spent four years in a senior vice-presidential position at Paysafe Group August 2018 to April 2023.
Within the betting industry, Gowar had a six-year spell with the UK’s original exchange, Betfair, as head of brand marketing between 2002 and 2009.
Writing about his appointment on LinkedIn, Gowar said: “I have joined Matchbook. After 25 years working across betting and tech, it feels, genuinely and excitingly, like coming home.
“I started my career on a betting exchange. The idea was radical then: no house margin, no bookmaker taking a cut, just punters pricing each other fairly. We were ‘revolutionising betting’. The market ‘as it should be’. Where ‘sharp minds’ bet.
“Most people didn’t get it. Twenty-five years later, the world has caught up. Prediction markets are the conversation everyone in finance, sport and media is suddenly having.
“The thing is – they aren’t new. Exchanges have been doing this for two decades. What’s new is the moment – regulation, technology, audience appetite – aligned in a way it hasn’t been before.
“Matchbook sits right at the centre of the roundabout at the crossroads of that intersection. A proven exchange, a fair product, and a growing portfolio of opportunities – easyBet, new markets, new verticals – that make this feel less like a job and more like a story waiting to be written.”
Earlier this year, EGR spoke to Matchbook’s head of strategy, Jesse May, on the operator’s plans to crack the US prediction markets space.
Arnold Ash is EGR’s executive recruitment partner. It supports ambitious organisations to identify and attract industry leading executive talent. Find out more here.
The post Matchbook adds ex-Betfair head as chief growth officer first appeared on EGR Intel.
Alex Gowar joins the exchange’s C-suite after more than 20 years working across a series of betting and tech firms
The post Matchbook adds ex-Betfair head as chief growth officer first appeared on EGR Intel.