Igniting entrepreneurial growth

Founded in 2015, London-based Ignition Law is driven by a clear purpose: to be the law firm for start-ups, scale-ups, SMEs and the entrepreneurially spirited.

Since then, Ignition has grown to become a full-service law firm with 70 people, won multiple awards and achieved Certified B-Corporation status.

Founder and partner Alex McPherson explains how they did it, on this episode of The Purposeful Strategist.

Alex  founded Ignition Law in 2015 as a high-growth, full-service law firm dedicated to providing pragmatic and cost-effective legal services to start-ups, scale-ups, and entrepreneurial clients. With a focus on community-minded and ethical practices, Ignition Law has supported thousands of businesses, as well as leading business schools, universities, family offices, and investors.

Recently achieving B Corp certification, Ignition Law has solidified its reputation as a purpose-led law firm committed to positive social and environmental impact. The firm has earned widespread recognition, winning and being shortlisted for major industry awards, including The Lawyer Awards, Legal Business Awards, SME News, The Law Society Awards, Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Awards, LegalWeek Awards for Innovation, and The Great British Entrepreneur Awards.

Alex graduated from Oxford University in 2003 and gained extensive legal experience at leading international law firms Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Hogan Lovells, where he also undertook client secondments at Tesco, ExxonMobil, and Goldman Sachs. He co-founded Ignition Financial, a corporate finance and tax boutique, and was shortlisted for the 2023 Great British Entrepreneur Awards. Beyond his work at Ignition, Alex is an Entrepreneurship Expert at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and serves on the Corporate Law Expert Panel of LexisNexis.

Alex McPherson

Purpose: Transform Domestic Electricity Use

What do you do when your business purpose requires your customers to change their behavior?

For Powervault, the London-based manufacturer of renewable energy storage systems, the answer is to use technology make the change not only easy, but financially rewarding.

Robin Stopford, Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer explains Powervault’s approach in this episode of The Purposeful Strategist.

Powervault transform their customers’ energy usage, helping them lower their electricity bills and minimise their carbon footprint - with confidence. Since inception in 2014, Powervault has been at the forefront of energy storage technology.  Their high-quality, intelligent solar batteries are designed and manufactured in their UK factory.

Robin is the CEO of Powervault, a scaling clean tech company he joined in November 2023.  For the past 20 years Robin has led corporate development for both public and private equity-backed global industrial groups, including both strategy and M&A, latterly adding divisional leadership and turnaround to his roles.  Robin started his career at Rolls-Royce and Bain with a Wharton MBA.  Trained as a business coach Robin seeks to create an environment where people feel like valued members of a winning team on a worthwhile mission.

Robin Stopford

How Culture and Purpose Propelled a Turnaround

Culture and purpose are powerful tools when you are challenged to turn around a business that isn’t reaching its full potential. CEO Kevin Davidson used both to successfully turn around Norman Broadbent plc, the London-based executive search and recruitment firm.

This year the firm announced its best financial results in over a decade, with a 41 per cent increase in revenues.

Kevin Davidson discusses how he did it, on this episode of The Purposeful Strategist.

Purpose Powers Moderna’s UK Growth

Messenger RNA and personalised medicine promise to transform how we prevent and treat disease.

Darius Hughes, General Manager in the UK and Ireland for Moderna, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology company, wants the UK to lead the way.

Learn how he uses the company’s purpose to attract and keep the talented professionals he needs to achieve that ambition, on this episode of The Purposeful Strategist.

Now-Next-Later: Developing a Purposeful Strategy

Teach your team how to say “no”, and don’t put an end date on your strategy - instead focus on “now-next-later”. This unconventional advice comes from Ben Peachey, Chief Executive of the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors. He also finds Purpose and Ambition more realistic than mission and vision.

Learn how these beliefs, and using Theory of Change maps, are key to refreshing and implementing the institute’s purpose-driven strategy. On this episode of The Purposeful Strategist.

Make Health and Safety a Purposeful Strategic Concern

Employers and health-and-safety professionals face an increasingly complex array of challenges as they try to make workplaces physically and psychologically saffe.

Vanessa Harwood-Whitcher is Chief Executive of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health. Listen as she explains how IOSH is equipping employers and health-and-safety professionals to deal with their ever-widening remit, on this episode of The Purposeful Strategist.

Purpose Drives New Approach to Regulation

Tap water must be safe, reliable and high-quality. The purpose of the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) is to ensure that public water supplies in England and Wales meets those standards.

Delivering on that purpose has required solving a set of complex interrelated challenges, and developing a new approach to regulation.

Marcus Rink, Chief Inspector at the DWI, describes the journey on this episode of The Purposeful Strategist.

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