Has a long-running squabble for control of NeoNET with his ex-wife Samantha Villiers. He is currently in the position of control, but she has recently managed to turn his former right hand man, Miles Lanier, against him.

A Boston-born businessman and one of world’s 2 or 3 richest men. He appears to be in his mid-fifties, the only obvious cyberware he sports is a datajack, and he reportedly has a photographic memory. He is a charismatic showman and salesman, and a master strategist, knowing exactly when to spring things on people.

Starting his career as a cost-killer who bought and resold companies after restructuring them, he may have been involved with the suspicious deaths of 2 former Echo Mirage members who had gone to the private sector, after which he purchased their company Matrix Systems. He merged the local Bostonian company Matrix Systems with Japanese giant Fuchi Industrial Electronics in 2034, and oversaw the takeover of JRJ International by Fuchi in 2038, making the Japanese megacorporation a AAA and the leader of the emerging matrix industry.

In the late 2050s, he organized the divestment and refinancing of Fuchi Americas transferring assets to other parts of his financial empire. In October 2059, he merged them, including JRJ International, as Novatech, now personally controlling a majority stake. Novatech emerged from the 2nd Matrix Crash as NeoNET, through a further complicated series of deals, schemes, betrayals, and the like.

His machinations were dubbed the “Villiers Maneuver”, whereby someone seemingly sabotages his own work only to reveal something stronger and better in its place.