Sir Richard Harpin

Sir Richard Harpin is one of Britain’s most successful entrepreneurs and a leading voice on how mid-size businesses scale to become big, enduring companies.

Born and raised in Yorkshire, Sir Richard Harpin showed an entrepreneurial streak early. 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 that sale, Sir Richard Harpin stepped back from day-to-day corporate leadership to focus on what he believes is the UK’s biggest economic opportunity: helping more mid-size businesses scale successfully.

Today, his work centres on two platforms:

Through Business Leader, Sir Richard Harpin supports founders and CEOs running businesses typically turning over £3m+ in revenue. Business Leader provides structure, peer learning, and practical insight for leaders navigating the difficult jump 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.

Sir Richard Harpin 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.

Sir Richard Harpin is a member of the NatWest Mid-Market Council, a senior advisory group bringing together experienced entrepreneurs and business leaders to help inform how Britain better supports mid-size companies — the part of the economy that employs millions 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 over 30 years of building, scaling, and exiting businesses into a clear, 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 Festival of Entrepreneurs, where he is known for presenting his 9 Steps for Building a Billion Pound Business.

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

Growth Partner Investment:

• Gozney – Premium pizza ovens for home cooks and professional chefs, built into a global DTC brand.
• Passenger – Purpose-led outdoor apparel brand combining sustainability with direct-to-consumer growth.
• Secret Food Tours – Global food-tour business offering curated local experiences in major cities worldwide.
• Easy Bathrooms – Vertically integrated bathroom retailer with a fast-growing national showroom estate.
• Abingdon  – UK manufacturer and distributor of carpets and flooring serving domestic and trade markets.
• SynerGym – High-value gym operator scaling rapidly across Spain with a disciplined rollout model.
• Additional Lengths – Professional hair-extensions brand supplying salons and consumers, expanding internationally.
• Host & Stay – Holiday-let management platform operating at scale across the UK.
• Stubble & Co – Premium bags and accessories brand focused on durability and modern design.
• Creature Comforts – Growing veterinary group focused on high-quality clinical care and local practices.
• Flooring Superstore – Multi-channel flooring retailer serving trade and consumer customers nationwide.

Media Coverage:

• The Sunday Times – Former Sunday Times business columnist, writing on scaling companies and UK entrepreneurship.
• Financial Times – Featured for the £4.1bn sale of HomeServe and commentary on UK mid-market growth.
• City A.M. – Former columnist, writing on business leadership and economic growth.
• Bloomberg – Featured covering the HomeServe transaction and Richard’s role as founder.
• Forbes – Profiled as a leading entrepreneur and author on building scalable businesses.
• BBC – Appeared and cited on UK business, entrepreneurship and economic issues.

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