Richard Harpin

speaker

914 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jan 2026 last heard 12 Jan

Richard Harpin’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jan 2026 with 1.

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James Reed: all about business · 61. The email that saved HomeServe and sparked a £4bn business | Sir Richard Harpin · 12 Jan 2026 podcast

And I ended up doing it for 30 years.

But I didn't want to go from working flat out to doing nothing if I ever decided to leave HomeServe, as I ultimately did.

So I wanted to back other entrepreneurs at an earlier stage in their career with my own money.

And I like retail because retail is detail.

And if I hadn't done home serve, then I'd have liked to have been a retailer.

I know consumer from my marketing days at Procter & Gamble.

I was the marketing assistant on Fairy Liquid.

That's why my hands are still so soft.

I was the brand manager on Vortex Bleach, which that business didn't ultimately work.

It was killed by Unilever's Domestos.

So when people describe my career, it's from the toilet pan to down the drain with home serve.

Well, if it gives you any comfort, I worked years ago at Sarchin Sarchin Advertising, and I did the advertising for Head & Shoulders Shampoo, another Procter & Gamble product.

You just need to look at me to see where that ended up.

But I think Procter & Gamble is obviously a great training.

I mean, we've had several people on the podcast who have spent their early career at Procter & Gamble and done brilliantly since.

Yeah, I got off to do... A great example was...

An ex-colleague of mine in HomeServe that was previously Procter & Gamble, Greg Jackson, left HomeServe.

We worked together for three years and got a check for 20 million to set up Octopus Energy.

Exactly.

That's one of the people I was thinking of.

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