The team

Real humans. Clearly labelled robots. No blurred lines.

The people below have spent careers in non-bank lending, R&DTI, credit and technology. They front the meetings. Our AI agents, in their own section further down and each labelled as AI, handle the boring bits at speed. You will always know which is which, though we believe they will all be so helpful that you don't care.

Co-Founder

Glenn Maynard

Co-Founder and Director of SmartyBusiness

Co-Founder and Board Member

Glenn has spent 25 years in non-bank lending, across loan origination, wholesale debt structuring and referral-led distribution. He was a co-Founder of Artisan Finance, Think Tank Group and Rate Money, with cumulative origination measured in the billions. He co-founded SmartyPants to point all of that experience at the R&DTI advance market. He has funded more loans than he has had hot dinners, and he has had quite a lot of hot dinners.

Co-Founder

James Isbell

Co-Founder and Director of SmartyValue

Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer

James brings 25 years across growth, commercialisation and technology partnerships, with deep roots in the Australian startup ecosystem through Second Sphere Partners. Before that James worked with Microsoft and IBM in Sydney, Singapore and Wall Street advising Banks and FinTechs. He knows the R&DTI claimant base personally, through portfolio work and a long adviser network. For the record, James did not cause the GFC. He was around at the time, but it was not him.

Simon Cairncross

Director of SmartyFiduciaries

Chief Financial and Credit Officer

Simon is a finance and advisory specialist whose core is finance, accounting and strategy, with advisory board roles at two non-bank funders and a long career across banking and finance. He handles financial reporting, funding, process improvement, origination and the discipline that keeps everyone honest. If it needs to add up, Simon has already checked that it adds up.

Iain Podd

Director of SmartyAutomagics

Chief Technology Officer

Iain is a technologist with business development experience across startups and the enterprise, working at senior strategic levels in a broad range of industries. He leads and motivates cross-functional teams to ship large projects that actually land. He builds the automagic so the humans can do the human bits.

Tomas Moxey

Head of SmartyOutcomes

Senior Credit Analyst

Tomas holds a Bachelor of Business in Finance, Management and Marketing from UTS and drives research, analysis and client delivery at SmartyPants. He is the one turning a claim into a clear answer. Fast, careful, and quietly certain the numbers are right.

Oscar Lenior

Head of SmartyPartnerships

Business Development Manager

Oscar holds a Bachelor of Business in Finance, Management and Marketing from Macquarie University and leads business development and partner acquisition at SmartyPants. If you are a prospective customer or partner, Oscar is probably already in your inbox, and you will not mind. This is because he makes building partnerships easy and getting paid easier.

Caleb Forbes

Facilitator of SmartyConnections

Strategic Growth Partner

Caleb is our health and life sciences specialist, with 25 years across pharmaceutical and healthcare markets in New York and Australia, including building Swordfish Group across three agencies and two continents and founding Blue Chilli Health. Health is one of the most R&D-intensive sectors in the country, and Caleb is how SmartyPants reaches the founders in it. He connects the right people to the right money, and makes it look effortless.

David Hodgson

Facilitator of SmartyConnections

Strategic Growth Partner

David is a technology growth and go-to-market advisor with a strong record scaling businesses and unlocking value across private equity and portfolio companies. He led expansion at fast-growing firms like Cloud Sherpas and Barhead, both of which exited successfully to larger multinationals. He brings a structured, systems-based approach to growth, treating what most people call an art as a science. He insists growth is a science, which is a very structured way of admitting he is also quite good at the art.

The AI agents

Not people. Front office AI, working the queue.

Every agent below is software. They are named and given a job so you know who is doing what, and they are always labelled AI so you never mistake one for a colleague with a pulse. These are the front office agents only.

Humans hold every decision that matters. Our credit agents recommend and analyse. They do not decide.

SmartyPants Capital agents

Vera

BDM Agent

Vera runs client and partner engagement, and she is usually the first voice you will meet. She finds the companies who should be talking to us, answers the early questions, qualifies what you need, and hands you to a human the moment a decision is required. She works around the clock and never once asks for a long weekend.

Hugh

Credit Analyst Agent

Analyses, does not decide

Hugh reads the claim so the humans do not have to squint at it. He extracts the eligible activity, models the numbers, estimates when the refund will land, and flags anything that needs a human eye. He is supervised by real credit people, and when his confidence dips, he says so and calls one in. Fast where speed is safe, careful where it counts.

Cal

Credit and Risk Manager Agent

Recommends, people decide

Cal weighs it all up and forms a recommendation, with his reasoning shown, not hidden. He checks it against the credit policy, handles the awkward exceptions, and keeps an eye on the whole portfolio. Anything outside appetite goes to a human. Cal recommends, people decide.

Margo

Partner Agent

Margo looks after partners: onboarding, enablement, co-piloting partner deals through the process, and making sure referral fees are tracked and paid right. If something needs a human, she escalates without fuss. She exists so being a SmartyPants partner is easy and staying one is easier.

Lex

Loan Agreements Agent

Lex handles the paperwork that turns a yes into funded: preparing the loan agreements, getting the detail right, and keeping the documents moving so settlement is never the slow bit. Careful with the fine print so you do not have to be.

SmartyPants Advisory agents

Belle

Growth and Screening Agent

Belle is Advisory's first hello. She finds R&D-active companies, answers the early questions, checks eligibility against the core tests, and drafts a proposal so you know where you stand before committing to anything. Warm, quick, and straight with you about whether there is a claim worth chasing.

Marlo

Client Delivery Manager Agent

Marlo runs your engagement once you are on board: onboarding, the discovery interviews, keeping everyone updated, and staying with you through to the outcome. She is the one making sure nothing falls through the cracks, so the work gets done and you always know where it is up to.

Frankie

Referral and Partner Channel Agent

Frankie looks after the accountants, bookkeepers and brokers who send us clients: onboarding, the explainer content that makes referring easy, deal support, and keeping referral fees tracked and correct. She makes the introduction worth everyone's time.

Avatars are still to be produced. They will be hyper-realistic in line with the brand direction, and always clearly labelled AI, never passed off as real people. The slots above are ready for them.

BRAND

Arty is our brand ambassador, not a team member. He fronts the brand and holds no job on the floor, so you will find him around the place as brand presence, never in the working line-up above.