An Edinburgh tech and analytics consultancy is doubling its workforce to 100 across the UK after backing from investors and a spike in customer demand.
Optima Partners, which secured £2.3m from investor BGF, will look to grow its headcount after experiencing 55 per cent year-on-year growth since 2020.
The company, which supports a range of high-profile businesses to develop ‘customer-centric transformation plans’, has also appointed new non-executive directors.
Karen Thomas-Bland and Richard Pugh joined last year, and the firm says it’s looking to strengthen ‘all parts of its operations and develop further in the next 12 months’. The rapid growth has seen the business post turnover in excess of £5.7m for their financial year 2022.
CEO Alan Crawley said: “We have received a tremendous response to our unique data and insight-led approach to customer understanding and behaviour. We are now striving to fill a number of vacancies within the company to meet growing demand, bringing new SMEs, consultants, technologists and data experts into the business to support our clients in navigating complex customer transformation agendas.”
Optima Partners’ clients list includes OVO and Lloyds Banking Group, and the firm starts 2023 with several new senior leaders, including customer strategy and engagement director, Murray Allan, John Ramdenee as director of telecoms, energy and media and Ed Knight as director of banking and financial services.
Under the leadership of chief data scientist Dr Chris Foley, Optima’s data practice grew four-fold in 2022, delivering advanced data science and engineering solutions to global organisations. The practice welcomed two new leaders, Andrew Donald as head of engineering and Dr Zhana Kuncheva as head of health data sciences.
Drs Foley and Kuncheva, and the growing health sciences team published influential research in leading academic journals, including the journal Nature, in partnership with scientists from a renowned global biotech company. The firm – which has opened offices in London and Bristol – – also commenced a new R&D program and scientific collaborations at the University of Edinburgh, Harvard and MIT’s the Broad Institute and Kings College London.