Richard Harpin

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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 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

Yes.

Yeah.

So I feel we're sort of coming towards the end of our conversation.

I mean, you've given us lots of good tips, but what would be your biggest piece of advice to an entrepreneur who already has a business up and running, one of these mid-sized businesses, who wants to move it, in the famous words of the Jim Collins book, from good to great?

How would you suggest they best proceed?

Step number five, James, and that is hire your replacement.

That was a breakthrough with HomeServe.

So I was eight years into HomeServe and hired somebody in business development.

After a year, I thought they've done an amazing job.

And do you know what?

I think I'm a rubbish MD and they could do my job better.

This was when we were only a UK business.

So I called this guy into my office and said, Jonathan, you're promoted.

I'm giving you my job.

That then meant I could work on the business rather than in the business and started thinking about, I wonder whether HomeServe would work in a foreign country.

And ultimately it did.

And then the magic model was hiring great proven chief execs in each of those nine other countries.

And that then meant I could work on business development, the vision and the strategy and thinking about international, knowing that we've got great chief execs that were growing each of the countries and delivering amazing customer service.

Well, I'm so pleased you've mentioned recruitment as such an important aspect of success at the end of our conversation.

Let me say one other thing then, James, and that is in the early days, I used to have a black book and I'd write down names of people that I'd met thinking, I want to think about what job I could recruit them in for.

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