Sir Richard Harpin

Business Leader

Sir Richard Harpin is one of Britain's most successful entrepreneurs and a leading voice on how mid-sized businesses scale into large, enduring companies.

Born and raised in Yorkshire, Richard showed an entrepreneurial streak from an early age. By the age of six he was already trading, and as a teenager he built and sold a fly-fishing tackle business that paid for his first car and the deposit on his first home.

After graduating from the University of York and spending several years at Procter & Gamble, he co-founded HomeServe in 1993 with a £50,000 investment and a simple idea: make home repairs easier and more reliable for customers. Over the next three decades, HomeServe grew into a FTSE 100 company serving millions of customers worldwide before being sold in 2023 for £4.1 billion.

Following the sale, Richard stepped back from day-to-day corporate leadership to focus on what he believes is the UK's biggest economic opportunity: helping more mid-sized businesses scale successfully.

Today, his work centres on two platforms.

Through **Business Leader**, Richard supports founders and CEOs running businesses typically generating £3 million or more in annual revenue. Business Leader provides structure, peer learning, and practical insight for leaders navigating the difficult transition from founder-led growth to professional scale.

Alongside this, he backs and mentors ambitious businesses through **Growth Partner**, an investment and support platform focused on long-term value creation rather than short-term financial engineering. His approach combines capital, coaching, and pattern recognition drawn from decades of experience.

Richard is also a regular columnist for *The Sunday Times*, where he writes about entrepreneurship, leadership, productivity, and the structural changes needed to help Britain build more large, resilient companies. His writing is grounded in lived experience rather than theory, often drawing lessons from mistakes as much as successes.

He is a member of the NatWest Mid-Market Council, a senior advisory group that brings together experienced entrepreneurs and business leaders to help inform how Britain can better support mid-sized companies, a vital part of the economy that employs millions of people and drives long-term growth.

In 2025, Richard became a *Sunday Times* bestselling author with his book, *How to Make a Billion in 9 Steps*, which distils more than 30 years of building, scaling, and exiting businesses into a clear and practical framework for entrepreneurs.

He is a highly sought-after speaker and has delivered keynotes and talks at leading business events, including Elite Business Live, The Business Show, and the Festival of Entrepreneurs, where he is known for presenting his "9 Steps for Building a Billion-Pound Business" framework.

In 2025, Richard was awarded a knighthood, becoming **Sir Richard Harpin**.