Who is Andrew Roughan, the new CEO of Defence Holdings (LSE: ALRT), and what does his appointment mean for shareholders?

Defence Holdings PLC (LSE: ALRT) confirmed on 5 February 2026 that Andrew Roughan would become its chief executive officer, with the appointment taking effect on 30 March 2026. For retail investors who have been tracking the company through its transition from Guild Esports to a sovereign AI defence platform, the CEO question has been a persistent one: the board had been searching for a permanent chief executive since December 2025, and the gap between that announcement and Roughan’s start date gave the appointment a higher-than-usual profile in community discussion. Roughan arrives from Plexal, a London-based innovation company he has led since 2018, where his work sat at the intersection of UK government technology priorities, national security programmes, and the challenge of getting early-stage companies in front of Ministry of Defence stakeholders. The question for ALRT shareholders is not just who he is, but what his specific background unlocks for a company still waiting to convert Project Ixian into its first disclosed commercial contract.

What is Andrew Roughan’s professional background before joining Defence Holdings as CEO?

Andrew Roughan spent the earlier part of his career in the telecoms and data centre sectors, including senior management roles at Cable and Wireless. He joined the Here East project in 2011 as part of the founding team tasked with transforming the former Press and Broadcast Centres at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, east London, into a technology and innovation campus after the London 2012 Games. The team secured a 200-year lease from the London Legacy Development Corporation, and Roughan served as chief operating officer of Here East as the campus grew to house nearly 4,000 workers and students across a broad mix of technology, creative, and academic organisations.

In 2018, Roughan moved across the Here East campus to lead Plexal, the innovation centre and consultancy that operates within it. Plexal’s model is not a conventional accelerator. It combines physical co-working space with a government-facing innovation consultancy that designs and delivers programmes on behalf of UK departments and agencies. When Roughan took the role, Plexal had just been tasked by the government to deliver a £13.5 million cyber security programme, its largest project to that point. He restructured the organisation around three strategic pillars: national security, emerging technology, and economic prosperity, with national security work becoming the dominant and most commercially significant strand over time.

His Cardiff University education and decades of operational experience across regulated technology environments give him a profile that is recognisably private sector but deeply embedded in the machinery of UK government technology delivery. That combination, operational and commercial credibility alongside sustained relationships in security-sensitive departments, is precisely what the Defence Holdings board described as the target profile when it initiated its CEO search in late 2025.

What did Andrew Roughan actually deliver at Plexal and why does it matter for ALRT investors tracking the company’s defence pipeline?

At Plexal, Roughan oversaw a consistent expansion of the organisation’s footprint across UK government defence and national security programmes. Under his leadership, Plexal became a delivery partner for the National Cyber Security Centre’s NCSC for Startups programme, which ran in partnership with GCHQ and connected early-stage companies to classified government cyber priorities. Plexal also delivered the Airbus Defence and Space Accelerator, the Futures Lab ISR showcase, and technology demonstrations under the MOD’s Commercial X series, where novel capabilities were presented directly to operational users.

More recently, Plexal became a partner of the Laboratory for AI Security Research, a public-private partnership involving UK Government departments, the University of Oxford, The Alan Turing Institute, and Queen’s University Belfast, focused specifically on the security of AI systems. The organisation also delivered the Cyber Runway CNI programme on behalf of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, targeting the resilience of UK critical national infrastructure against cyber threats. In January 2026, just before Roughan’s appointment to Defence Holdings was announced, Plexal was named as a key partner to the Secret Intelligence Service, known publicly as MI6, for the SIS Technology Challenge.

The relevance for ALRT investors is specific. Roughan has spent eight years building and maintaining relationships with the decision-making layers of UK defence and national security procurement, including the Ministry of Defence’s Commercial X team, DASA, DIANA, the jHUB innovation unit, and aligned NATO stakeholders. Defence Holdings needs exactly those relationships to convert Project Ixian from contract finalisation into a signed agreement and to build the pipeline that follows. His arrival does not guarantee that outcome, but his starting position in the relevant networks is meaningfully stronger than a conventional technology executive without that history.

How does the Plexal model compare to what Defence Holdings is trying to build and are there transferable lessons?

Plexal’s operating model has direct parallels with what Defence Holdings is attempting through its Sovereign Software Capability Accelerator, announced in February 2026. Both involve identifying early-stage technology companies with relevant capabilities, connecting them to government problem statements, and providing pathways into defence and national security procurement. Plexal did this as a consultancy funded by government contracts. Defence Holdings is attempting a capital markets version of the same model, using its listed status and balance sheet to aggregate sovereign software capability and deploy it commercially.

Roughan’s experience designing and running these programmes from the government side gives him an unusually direct understanding of what the Ministry of Defence actually needs from an innovation intermediary, where the bottlenecks in the procurement pathway sit, and which relationships produce contract flow versus which produce activity without revenue. That institutional knowledge is less visible than a specific contract announcement but arguably more valuable over the medium term for a company that is structuring itself as a platform rather than a single-product business.

The differences matter too. Plexal operated with government funding as its primary income source, insulating it from the commercial pressure that a listed company faces. Defence Holdings needs to generate disclosed revenue and justify its market capitalisation to shareholders who are watching the share price. Roughan will need to translate a relationship-rich, programme-delivery background into a commercial cadence that the capital markets can measure. That transition from government-funded delivery to investor-facing commercial execution is the primary test of his appointment.

What does the warrant structure attached to Andrew Roughan’s appointment tell retail investors about how the board sees the value creation timeline?

As part of his remuneration, Roughan was granted warrants over 142,907,576 ordinary shares, representing 6% of issued share capital at the time the terms were agreed. The warrants are divided into three tranches. The first tranche covers 71,453,788 warrants exercisable at 1.38p, representing 3% of issued capital. The second covers 35,726,894 warrants at 3.45p, and the third covers a further 35,726,894 warrants at 6.9p, each representing 1.5% of issued capital. With shares trading around 1.20p at the time of writing, the first tranche is modestly out of the money, and the second and third tranches require the share price to reach multiples of the current level before they carry any value.

The structure does two things for retail investors to note. First, it directly aligns Roughan’s financial upside with a share price that needs to recover toward, and materially exceed, its October 2025 highs before most of his warrants have value. Second, the three-tranche design implies a board that is thinking in stages: near-term delivery confirmation, medium-term commercial scaling, and a longer-term valuation re-rating that would be required to push the price to 6.9p or above. Whether or not those price levels are realistic depends entirely on contract conversion and revenue visibility that has not yet materialised.

Warrant structures of this type are standard for early-stage listed companies appointing senior executives. Investors should weigh them as a signal of intent and alignment rather than as a prediction of outcomes. The board clearly believes the company has a realistic path to the valuation levels implied by the upper exercise price. Retail investors are entitled to be more sceptical until that path is evidenced by commercial delivery.

What is the milestone timeline that retail investors should track now that Andrew Roughan has assumed the CEO role at ALRT?

The most important near-term catalyst remains the formal announcement of a signed Project Ixian contract with a disclosed customer and financial terms. The company confirmed in December 2025 that Project Ixian was in the final stages of contract finalisation with its first customer. Roughan assumed the role at the end of March 2026, meaning his first weeks in post coincide with a period in which that announcement is overdue relative to the timeline the company has implied. His first significant test as CEO will be whether he can drive that to completion and communicate it in a way that restores retail investor confidence in the pace of commercial execution.

Beyond the first contract, investors should watch for the Sovereign Software Capability Accelerator producing its first named participants and for any expansion of the National Security pillar, which launched in December 2025 with an initial collaboration with Gloucestershire Police. Roughan’s Plexal background makes him well-placed to attract credible early-stage companies to the Accelerator and to develop the National Security strand into something with commercial momentum. Neither of those tracks will produce near-term revenue on its own, but they provide evidence of pipeline development that matters for medium-term valuation.

Investors should also watch for any indication of Roughan’s own investor communications style. His LinkedIn profile and public statements at Plexal suggest a measured, mission-oriented communicator rather than an aggressive capital markets operator. That tone may suit the company’s positioning in the defence and national security sector, where credibility and discretion matter, but retail investors accustomed to frequent RNS flow and active social media engagement may need to adjust their expectations around the cadence of public-facing updates.

How does Andrew Roughan’s appointment fit into the broader governance build at Defence Holdings over the past twelve months?

Roughan’s appointment completes a governance structure that has been assembled at pace over the twelve months since Defence Holdings pivoted definitively toward its sovereign AI defence strategy. Field Marshal Lord Houghton of Richmond joined as non-executive chairman in October 2025, bringing four decades of military leadership, including his tenure as Chief of the Defence Staff. Andrew McCartney joined as chief technology officer, providing technical credibility on the AI and software delivery side. Jim Clover OBE, former UK Deputy Director of Cyber Operations, joined the Advisory Board in January 2026, adding classified programme experience and cyber operations depth.

Each of those appointments addressed a specific credibility gap. Lord Houghton provides senior military governance and institutional standing with the Ministry of Defence. McCartney provides the technical authority to validate the company’s product claims. Clover provides national security programme experience and the kind of security clearance background that matters when dealing with classified customer requirements. Roughan now provides the commercial and organisational leadership that the company needs to translate that advisory strength into contracted revenue.

Retail investors should view this governance assembly as a necessary but not sufficient condition for commercial success. Companies in the defence technology space can build impressive boards without generating proportionate contract flow. The Defence Holdings board now has genuine depth across military strategy, technical delivery, cyber operations, and government-facing commercial execution. Whether that depth produces results will be visible in the RNS announcements that follow Roughan’s first months in post.

What are the specific risks retail investors should weigh when assessing Andrew Roughan’s appointment against the current ALRT share price?

The most direct risk is that Roughan’s strengths, which are relational and programme-delivery oriented, do not translate quickly into the kind of commercial velocity that a listed company needs. Plexal operated in a world of government-funded programmes with long design cycles and multi-year delivery horizons. Defence Holdings is operating under capital markets pressure, with a share price that has retraced significantly from its October 2025 highs and a retail investor base that has been waiting for the Project Ixian contract since before Christmas. The pace of delivery required is materially different from anything in his previous operating environment.

There is also a question of whether his departure from Plexal, which was announced on 1 April 2026 when Plexal named PA Consulting and a reconstituted Plexal as the new delivery partners for the Accelerated Capability Environment programme, creates any friction in the government relationships he is bringing with him. Senior executives who leave government-adjacent roles do not automatically carry all of their institutional relationships into a new employer. The practical utility of those relationships in an ALRT context will become clearer over time rather than being immediately visible.

Dilution remains a structural feature of the company’s funding model regardless of who is leading it. The at-the-market facility has raised just over £713,000 to date, and Roughan’s own warrant package adds approximately 143 million shares of potential dilution. Neither of these factors is unique to his appointment, but retail investors entering or holding at current prices should factor ongoing share count growth into their return calculations. The appointment is a positive signal for execution credibility. It does not resolve the fundamental commercial proof point, which is a signed, disclosed contract with a real customer.

What are the key takeaways for ALRT investors following Andrew Roughan’s appointment as Defence Holdings CEO?

• Andrew Roughan became CEO of Defence Holdings (LSE: ALRT) on 30 March 2026, following eight years leading Plexal, a government-facing innovation company embedded within the Here East technology campus at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford.
• At Plexal, Roughan oversaw delivery of national security and defence innovation programmes for GCHQ, the National Cyber Security Centre, the Ministry of Defence’s Commercial X team, and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, among others, giving him direct relationships in the procurement layers that Defence Holdings needs to access.
• His warrant package covers 142,907,576 shares across three tranches exercisable at 1.38p, 3.45p, and 6.9p, structuring his financial upside around a sustained recovery and re-rating of the ALRT share price from its current level of approximately 1.20p.
• The primary near-term catalyst for retail investors remains the formal announcement of a signed Project Ixian contract with disclosed financial terms. Roughan’s first weeks in post coincide with a period in which that announcement has been expected since December 2025.
• The governance build at Defence Holdings now includes Lord Houghton of Richmond as non-executive chairman, Andrew McCartney as CTO, Jim Clover OBE on the Advisory Board, and Roughan as CEO. The depth is genuine but must now be tested against commercial delivery rather than assessed on credentials alone.
• Key risks include the gap between Roughan’s programme-delivery background and the commercial pace required of a listed company, potential friction in transferring government relationships to a new employer, and ongoing dilution from the ATM facility and warrant exercises.
• Roughan’s appointment is the most consequential executive hire Defence Holdings has made. Whether it proves transformative or merely credibility-enhancing will be determined by the contract announcements that follow in the weeks and months ahead.