Winner: Rob Harlow, Co-founder and CTO, SoPro Group.
Company: SoPro Group, Brighton.
Award Won: Businessperson of the Year, Sussex Business Awards, 2021.
Success: Regional recognition for the impact of SoPro's community strategy under Rob's leadership.
By 2021, SoPro had grown from a Brighton-based startup to a major UK success story—operating across multiple continents, supporting over 600 clients, and employing over 250 staff.
Rob Harlow’s challenge wasn’t just scaling technology and operations.
It was doing it while:
Building tech products that changed how businesses find customers.
Investing in local people, entrepreneurs, and schools.
Leading with innovation, transparency, and relentless improvement.
Winning regional recognition would validate not just SoPro’s growth—but Rob’s role as a transformational leader for the entire Sussex business ecosystem.
Here’s what we did:
🧠 Strategic Innovation
Rob’s leadership fuelled SoPro’s rapid international growth through:
📈 Doubling revenue to in 2021 without external investment.
🖥️ Developing a new SaaS product to reach global self-service markets.
🌍 Expanding SoPro’s services internationally while keeping Brighton at the heart of its UK operations.
💬 Community Contribution
Rob led on a number of personal initiatives including:
🎒 Launching Level Up Laptops, donating refurbished laptops to Sussex schoolchildren during Covid-19.
🧠 Creating Founders Hub — a free peer-to-peer network for local entrepreneurs.
💸 Personally investing in Brighton-based start-ups and mentoring emerging founders.
🧑💻 Founding a Developer Academy to train the next generation of tech talent.
Rob combined global business success with local leadership—proving that scaling internationally doesn’t mean leaving your community behind.
🏆 Rob Harlow was named Businessperson of the Year at the Sussex Business Awards 2021.
The impact of this win:
🏛️ Cemented SoPro’s position as a Sussex-born international business success story.
📣 Boosted local brand pride and recruitment power (40+ new Brighton hires during Covid).
🚀 Helped recruit new staff member at a time when Sopro needed to attract local talent.
🏆 Inspired SoPro’s ongoing commitment to community-driven growth and social impact.
✅ Strategic positioning aligned with real award criteria.
✅ Story-driven writing grounded in clear proof.
✅ Balanced innovation with tangible business impact.
✅ Strong internal collaboration for fast turnaround.
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