News
The ambition shaping the UK
7 Oct 2026
The LDC Top 50 celebrates leaders whose appetite for innovation is building stronger businesses and a more productive economy.
The UK’s entrepreneurial talent is remarkably varied. Across the country, leaders are advancing science and technology, tackling real-world challenges and serving customers and communities better. In doing so, they are creating jobs, developing skills and generating lasting value for the economy.
Now in its ninth year, The LDC Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders celebrates the people driving that progress. Many have built growing businesses during rapid change and economic uncertainty without losing sight of their purpose, principles or long-term plans.
Private equity investor LDC, part of Lloyds Banking Group, launched the programme to bring attention to the leaders behind a valuable yet often overlooked group: profitable, fast-growing businesses with annual turnover of up to £50 million. Often compared with Germany’s Mittelstand, the broader segment has grown 20 per cent faster than the wider economy since 2014, research suggests.
Medium-sized businesses employing 50 to 249 people make up just 0.7 per cent of the UK’s private sector business population. Yet they generate 17 per cent of private sector turnover.
This year’s leaders in The LDC Top 50 represent businesses with combined turnover of £1.4 billion and pre-tax profits of £152 million. Profit supports resilience, investment and growth. They employ 8,457 people, from Dundee to Bristol. Beyond providing secure incomes, they invest in training, create opportunities and equip people with skills. Many are embracing AI to raise productivity, improve services and build more fulfilling careers. Some hold MBAs; others left school early. Their routes into business vary, but all are united by ambition.
John Garner, managing partner at LDC, says: “We launched The LDC Top 50 nine years ago to bring to life what we knew instinctively to be true: that the UK is home to some of the most inspiring and ambitious business leaders in the world.”
Year after year, we continue to discover talented individuals, hailing from every corner of the UK and from a wide variety of sectors and backgrounds, who are all building sustainable, mission-driven businesses.”
Long term view
The leaders behind growing businesses rarely succeed through grand declarations. They combine confidence with discipline, pursuing sustainable growth over the long term. Many in The LDC Top 50 aim to reach £100 million in turnover within the next few years, but they will not put employees, quality or customer relationships at risk to get there.
Stephanie Spratt and Chris Whitter, co-founders of school caterer Olive Dining, are committed to expansion but their mission to improve children’s food matters more than any financial target. Based in Oxted, Surrey, the business provides meals to 170 schools across London and the South East. Quality comes first. “We work in deprived areas,” Spratt says. “Our intention is to make sure the children are well fed with fresh food.”
When Spratt and Whitter take on a new school, the proportion of children choosing school meals typically rises from 63 per cent to 93 per cent, so demand is not the problem. The challenge is controlling the pace.
“I’ve been asked to go to Cornwall or Dorset but we’re precise in how much business we want to bring in every year,” says Spratt.
We grow 25% a year but you have to be able to train, maintain quality and deliver. We will take over the world, but strategically, growing the right way.”
For Patrick O’Mahony, founder of Leeds creative studio NEWSUBSTANCE Group and co-founder of the drone-show specialist SKYMAGIC, ambition is not simply scale. “It’s not just about getting to £100 million,” he says. “It’s the ambition of the work rather than the numbers.” After more than 20 years creating spectacular installations, he is developing permanent immersive experiences built to last.
O’Mahony isn’t afraid of pushing boundaries. “Probably the craziest project was closing Abu Dhabi International Airport,” he says. “We shut the north runway for half an hour, rerouted flights and recreated an Airbus A380 entirely with drones before flying it across the city and landing it on the runway. “We had one take, one team. You don’t get to practise closing international airspace.”
Global reach, local purpose
For some leaders, exports signal progress; for others, overseas expansion would distract from work at home. Fifty per cent of leaders in The LDC Top 50 export, over four times the national benchmark, but their ambitions differ.
Jo Whalley and Partha Chakraborty launched technology consultancy INNOVERV Global in 2023 and already generate 80 per cent of revenue overseas. What Chakraborty calls “post-Brexit flu”, as large companies froze their budgets after the UK left the EU, pushed them towards the US. “We are in New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia,” he says.
INNOVERV now employs 300 people, attracting talent with a remote-first, flexible model that pairs senior specialists with junior colleagues. Everyone in the company is a shareholder – a deliberate move to foster a sense of ownership.
You can see the energy and drive it’s created, with junior and senior people feeling like it’s their own company.”
Declan Ausher, by contrast, sees abundant opportunity closer to home. His retrofit specialist, Primech Building Services, helps schools, hospitals and government departments decarbonise buildings and improve energy efficiency. “I’d wanted to set up a business since I was 13,” he says. “Now we’re one of the fastest-growing businesses in Kent.”
His expertise in UK compliance and regulation keeps demand high. “We have so much work on our doorstep,” he says. Ausher now plans to turn Primech into a group of specialist trade businesses. “I will acquire other businesses and build them into a technical service group, bringing everyone under one banner.”
Although the focus may be national, the ambition is no less expansive.
A better way
Many leaders in The LDC Top 50 have succeeded by challenging industry assumptions. Some made familiar products or services simpler and more transparent; others rebuilt business models around environmental responsibility. All believed accepted practice was not always best.
Vikki Hodge, co-founder of £20 million-turnover Rave Coffee, established its Cirencester roastery after becoming frustrated by the coffee sector’s opacity. Customers can see into the glass-fronted roasting area, while beans are roasted to order rather than left sitting in storage. “We’re the first to let customers see what we’re doing,” she says. That openness is central to the business she has built.
Rave uses recyclable packaging and has a planet pledge: “Whether we make profit or not we will donate 1 per cent of all sales to environmental causes.” Hodge also wants farmers to receive a fairer deal. Her principle is simple: just because something has always been done one way does not make it right.
Fiona O’Connell followed the same instinct at Stockton Group, the drilling and civil engineering specialist she co-founded with her husband Gearoid. While competitors earn revenue from oil and gas, she “made the conscious decision to work only on sustainable projects”, from carbon capture schemes to flood alleviation. Its head office runs on solar power and she plans to electrify its fleet.
Clients do not demand the measures, but O’Connell says they aid recruitment and retention. “We have the skills in-house and people stay a long time.” She expects revenue to reach £25 million without compromising her principles.
When you have children, you realise it’s up to you to do all you can to slow climate change.”
Innovation can also make an established category more accessible. From their base in Blackpool, Zooki co-founders Jack Morrison and Marcus Mollinga have helped pioneer portable supplement sachets sold alongside sandwiches and crisps. “I wanted to find new ways to get nutrition into your diet,” Morrison says. “Big capsules felt outdated.”
The company’s “rip, sip and go” sachets are sold by mainstream UK retailers, and the business is growing at 100 per cent a year. Morrison unveils “wacky and wonderful” flavours each month, from spicy margarita to blueberry pie, to keep customers coming back.
Next, he wants to go global: “I want Zooki to mean the same thing to somebody in South Korea as it does to somebody in India or England,” he says.
“The creativity and tenacity of the leaders in The LDC Top 50 are clear for all to see,” Garner says. “From improving children’s nutrition to leading carbon capture projects and developing awe-inspiring installations at one of the world’s most famous music festivals, their stories show ambition in many forms.”
What unites them all is a determination to build something of lasting value. We are proud to shine a spotlight on these unsung heroes of the UK economy.”
