Where Are They Now: Sat Sanghera, CEO of IPI

Since its launch in 2018, The LDC Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders programme has celebrated hundreds of exceptional individuals. In this series, we reconnect with some of our alumni to discover where their growth journeys have taken them, the impact of being part of the programme, and what their ambitions look like today.

When Sat Sangera joined IPI as an adviser in 2019, the technology reseller was struggling to find its niche in a crowded market. Sanghera agreed to become CEO in 2021 and with the leadership team, “reset the vision, purpose, and culture”, launching proprietary technology into international markets for the first time.

He has doubled turnover to £40m in five years. In 2024, he received The People Award in recognition of the outstanding culture he has built. IPI leads the industry in gender equality and allows junior employees to help shape the future of the company.

IPI will continue to post double-digit growth, says Sanghera, a trained meditation teacher, breaking into new, international markets. “We want to take our own products global.”

How have you achieved growth, and how are you building on that?

Pivoting from being solely a technology reseller to making our own products has been remarkable for the business. We also look after our clients; in some cases they stay with us 10-20 years in an industry where people change suppliers all the time. We have a culture steeped in purpose and centred on Exceptional Customer Contact, which spills over to our clients and the communities we support.

Are you going global?

While we remain UK-focused, we now have customers in the US, Europe and Australia and have launched a channel strategy, which allows other companies to resell our technology around the world. That’s new but will really move the needle on growth over the coming years and we forecast that 30% of revenue will eventually come from our channel initiatives and international sales.

What does inclusion mean to you?

It’s not just that 30% of our workforce are female in a male-dominated sector, it’s the type and profile of roles they are in. Across our leadership team, four are women, and we have female engineers and salespeople; there is representation across the company. I am passionate about early careers and our young people recently pitched their vision for the future of IPI to the whole executive team. Five of the ideas were incredible and we’re working together to implement them.