Matthew Gordon Barr was Dux of King’s High School in 1989.

This award came at the end of a hard year’s work for Matthew. Gaining the honour of Dux is tough enough but Matthew combined this with representing the Otago Men’s A Indoor Hockey Team, Otago Colts Outdoor Team and leading an active social life. Matthew won the Bremner Scholarship for Academic Excellence at Form Six in 1988.

Matthew has had a stellar career since leaving King's. He holds an Honours Degree in Electrical Engineering from Canterbury University, New Zealand, and, as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, a Bachelor of Arts in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, and an MSC in Economics.

Matthew is the group head for Digital Payments for North America. In this role, he is responsible for the delivery and development of the digital payments strategy across the U.S. and Canada, including MasterPass, MasterCard Digital Enablement Service (MDES), Personal Payments, contactless and EMV adoption. Matthew has held this role since 2014. In his previous role as Head of Market Development and Innovation based in Sydney, he was responsible for the development of emerging payment services, including both mobile and e-commerce payments, in the Australasian markets. 

Matthew was instrumental in establishing the Australian market as a key lead market across contactless, MasterPass and commercial mobile NFC solutions. Prior to joining MasterCard in 2011, Matthew was an Executive at Telstra, where he was responsible for core mobile services product development. He has also worked in Retail Banking, New Media and Management Consulting in a broad career that has provided invaluable experience in the definition and delivery of technology and service-based innovation.