How do you build a £1 billion business in the UK? James Whittaker, Deutsche Bank’s head of wealth management business in the UK and Nordics, asked two founders who succeeded – Sir Richard Harpin, founder of HomeServe and host of the Business Leader podcast, and Greg Jackson, founder and CEO of Octopus Energy. Do founders need to study at university, think globally, stay focused on the core business or even do without an HR department in order to achieve unicorn status?
Jackson argues for more investment in British businesses, warns of a £2 trillion gap in pension fund investment in British companies and calls for a 100-day plan to fix it. Harpin calls for stamp duty on shares to be scrapped to revive the London Stock Exchange, explains why he refused to sue a HomeServe copycat in India, and argues for investment to help scale-ups accelerate from £100m to £1bn.
Plus: why entrepreneurship “isn’t good for you” and “it’s not a rational decision”, AI’s impact on the next generation of unicorns, and the businesses on the UK Billion Pound Business list they most admire.
Take a look at the list of UK Billion Pound Businesses here and sign up to our free weekly newsletter at businessleader.co.uk/newsletters.
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