The decisions that unlocked growth

It sounds like a simple question. Ask the leaders behind some of the North’s fastest-growing businesses how they achieved remarkable growth and surely you’ll hear about winning the biggest client, launching an innovative product or making a bold acquisition.

Instead, every conversation took us somewhere far more interesting.

Across very different sectors, it was presented as the outcome of a series of decisions. Some were difficult. Some felt risky at the time. Most looked obvious only with the benefit of hindsight. Taken together, they reveal something important about how ambitious businesses really scale.

They decided not to be everything to everyone

Many businesses assume growth comes from expanding their offer and saying yes to every opportunity. Several of our guests described doing precisely the opposite.

For Raman Sehgal, founder of ramarketing, one of the defining decisions in the company’s journey was to specialise in the life sciences sector. It meant narrowing the potential market, but strengthening the firm’s expertise, reputation and proposition. That decision was followed by international expansion, investment in leadership and stronger governance, creating a business that was ready when demand accelerated.

Reflecting on that period, Raman said: “We were specialist, we had internationalised, we had put a CEO in place, we put a leadership team, a board structure… we just didn’t know we were ready for growth anyway.”

The growth looked dramatic from the outside.

The preparation had taken years.

They decided to build businesses that could grow without them

As organisations become larger, founders eventually face a choice. Continue making every important decision themselves or create a leadership team capable of taking the business further than any one individual ever could.

That transition appeared in different forms throughout the series. It was not always comfortable and it certainly was not quick. Yet almost every guest spoke about trusting people earlier, empowering colleagues to lead and recognising that sustained growth depends on collective capability rather than individual brilliance.

Tom Lawson, CEO of Opencast, captured that philosophy perfectly when he said: “Build the right team around you… no one has all of the answers, the skills, the capabilities on their own.”

It’s a deceptively simple observation, but one that separates growing businesses from scaling businesses.

They decided not to panic

Economic uncertainty, changing markets, technological disruption and competitive pressure featured throughout our conversations. Yet what stood out was not how often these businesses changed direction, but how often they deliberately chose not to.

Joanna Feeley, founder of TrendBible, spoke about the importance of looking beyond today’s headlines. As a business that helps organisations understand the future, she explained that leaders need the confidence to plan for what is coming next rather than simply reacting to what is happening now. Long-term thinking is not about predicting the future perfectly. It is about making better decisions today because you have a clearer view of tomorrow.

Steven Forrest, CEO of Forfusion, reflected the same mindset from a different perspective: “We haven’t changed our strategy. We haven’t changed the strategic direction of the business.”

Different industries. Different businesses. The same lesson. Sustainable growth requires conviction as well as agility.

They invested before they could justify it

Listening back to the series, another pattern quickly becomes clear. The biggest investments often happened before the biggest growth.

Guests talked about strengthening governance, recruiting experienced leaders, expanding internationally, investing in systems, improving processes and developing culture long before they could point to the commercial return. These decisions were not responses to success. They were preparations for it.

When opportunities eventually arrived, they were not scrambling to catch up. They were ready.

They treated culture as a commercial advantage

It would have been easy for our conversations to become discussions about revenue, investment and market share. Instead, they kept returning to people. Not as a nice addition to business strategy, but as the strategy itself.

Whether discussing apprenticeships, employee ownership, leadership development or creating environments where talented people want to stay, every guest recognised that sustainable growth depends on building an organisation capable of growing together.

Tom summed it up perfectly: “They lose sight of the fact that the people are the product and how those people show up in a client environment is the thing that will differentiate you.”

Businesses often talk about culture as though it sits alongside commercial performance. The fastest-growing businesses seem to see it as one of the reasons commercial performance exists in the first place.

So, how did they grow?

That original question turned out to have no universal answer.

Some expanded internationally. Others specialised. Joanna spoke about anticipating change before competitors saw it. Tom described building exceptional teams. Raman focused on becoming the recognised expert in a single sector. Steven Forrest showed the value of strategic consistency.

Yet the pattern across them all was remarkably consistent.

Growth was unlocked by decisions made long before the results appeared. Decisions to focus rather than diversify. To invest before it felt comfortable. To trust other people. To stay patient when quicker wins were tempting. To build businesses that would last, not simply businesses that would grow quickly.

Those decisions rarely make the headlines, but they are the stories behind them.

The Fastest 50 podcast

The Fastest 50 podcast exists to uncover exactly those moments. Each episode goes beyond growth statistics and award citations to explore the choices, setbacks and turning points that shaped some of the UK’s most ambitious businesses. If you’re interested in what sustainable growth really looks like, you’ll find the answers in the conversations themselves.

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