Steve Leach is Real Business' Entrepreneur of the Year

by Real Business - Monday, 3rd December 2007

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Steve Leach is a self-confessed “Big Mouth”. Born in Forres, Scotland, he left school with a handful of qualifications, eager “to sample what life had to offer”. He started out in the rag trade and lived out every 21-year-old lad’s dream, running lingerie company Silky Drawers.

Several businesses later, fascinated by the rise of the internet, Leach followed his hunch that search marketing would be the most lucrative online niche and launched Bigmouthmedia in 1997, now the world’s largest digital marketing agency.

This canny entrepreneur has taken his brainchild from a first year turnover of £200,000 to £70m this financial year. Under his leadership, the company has gone from three staff in a dingy basement to 11 offices worldwide and more than 200 employees.

Leach has pioneered search marketing and brand protection to make Bigmouthmedia the finest in its field. The company’s unique artificial intelligence can break down the revenue and profit generated from every pound spent on marketing online.

No wonder its client list currently boasts more than 200 household names, including the likes of Tesco, MTV and British Airways, and has grown by more than 1,400 per cent in the past five years. Leach is a blue sky man through and through.

When he’s not working hard, or playing hard, you’ll find this former pilot taking a spin in one of his planes. And the sky’s the limit for Leach as he now prepares for a new challenge: an IPO. “It’s the only bit I haven’t done yet,” he says. No doubt he’ll rise to the challenge.

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