The secret sauce of global market leadership

I am very fortunate to have been a part of the last golden decade of UK tech and it’s been an honour to chair Tech Nation for the last three years. Before Tech Nation, I was lucky to be part of teams to build start-ups and grow scale-ups into multi-billion-dollar, global market leaders from both the Valley and the Europe in four different companies (2 Nasdaq - Oracle & Chordiant and 2 FTSE - Sage & Micro Focus) – all global leaders in their respective markets. It was relentless hard-work with some huge successes including taking a company from $zero to $70m revenues in 4 years – a rollercoaster ride and a few ‘bumps in the road’. The companies that I have led directly as CEO have added approximately $10bn of market value increase from Nasdaq listings to FTSE turnarounds and there has been some consistent ingredients of sustainable quality growth which I think are critical for UK founders to know – the secret sauce that Americans take to naturally.

In the last decade, the UK has spawned over one hundred unicorns and seen tech jobs increased from 2 million to 5 million. UK tech has grown 5% CAGR and contributed approximately half the overall UK economic growth in the last 10 years. Looking to the future, the UK has potential to become home of global market leaders; the natural place for US companies to invest, the destination for tech IPOs with the UK regions hosting tech clusters.

The UK has focussed on the fundamentals of tech growth, job creation & regional expansion. However, there is always more to do. Now, in this phase, the UK should re-established itself as the natural hub outside the USA for global tech market leaders - the prize is ‘ours to lose’. The UK’s political leaders have made bold statements on ambitions to become a ‘UK Science & Tech superpower’ and for the UK economy to create ‘a $1 trillion company’. This will not happen without the UK investing heavily in the sector and fostering growth to create market leading companies to rival other global tech companies. Tech is a ‘winner takes all’ game and the UK has to support founders to become market leaders in all the biggest geographies including USA.

Thinking about Tech Nation closing shortly, and one of the greatest legacies has been Tech Nation ‘Future Fifty’ program which has seen the likes of Revolut and Deliveroo pass through its doors. I’ve been asked “What advice would I give to the next generation of founders who’ll help to change and drive forward the face of UK tech – those who are leading ‘scale-ups’ who want to become global winners?’ In the next 3 weeks, I will share the essence of where UK companies need to change to scale to become a global market leader which I learnt the hard way with the scars on my back of mistakes made. We got there and can declare victory of becoming the No 1 as the global market leader. Over the next three weeks, I will write a series of ‘TechQuickTakes’ to provide the North Star to aspiring UK companies to go big and win on the global stage. With a strong cohort of global market leaders in multi-billion dollar markets, the UK absolutely has the potential to become a ‘Tech & Science Superpower’. Watch out for the first set of ‘TechQuickTakes’ playbooks next Thursday?

Former FTSE & Nasdaq CEO, Stephen Kelly on UK’s aspiring CEOs to become global market leaders