# Ian Strang **Chief Growth Officer, Level** — Berkhamsted, United Kingdom > I've spent twenty years building and running technology companies: founder and CEO of Beyond (acquired by Dignity PLC), MD of Pollen (800 people, £30M revenue, #7 Sunday Times Tech Track 100), operations leadership through two earlier exits. Most of that time the job was growth. At Beyond: 1.4M users a year and 30% market share, built on SEO and content, a partner network of 1,500 firms, and campaigns that got the brand talked about (the "Let's Talk About Death" ads TfL banned, coverage in the BBC, FT, Forbes and The Times, CreativePool Brand of the Year). At Pollen: a B2B2C engine of ambassador programmes and digital funnels that took a festival agency to 300 clients across Europe, the US and Asia. For the last two years I have also been building with AI myself: a SaaS product now used in 15 countries, built on my own time without a team, and at Level an AI-assisted underwriting engine, built to the standard a regulator expects, that takes a days-long process to minutes. Areas of focus: Growth systems: SEO, content, paid acquisition, partnerships, PR and brand campaigns AI transformation and AI operating model design Putting LLM systems into everyday workflows: underwriting, operations, customer service, back office Scaling organisations from 0 to 800+ Product, operations and GTM alignment Value creation in PE-backed and founder-led businesses Sector experience: SaaS, marketplaces, consumer, fintech and consumer credit, event-tech, legal-tech, digital cinema. Career Archetype: **Launchpad Navigator** (HS-DG) — One of the first Launchpad Navigators on Saywise ## Links - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/ianstrang ## Experience ### Chief Growth Officer, Level (2026-07 – present) London Area, United Kingdom · Level is an FCA-regulated consumer lender in family law and probate. I've joined to build the growth function and the operating model behind it. Designed and prototyped an AI-assisted case assessment engine that reads a loan application and its supporting documents, checks what is missing, applies the deterministic parts of lending policy and drafts the underwriter's summary. Then wrote the build brief and rules specifications and led the production build with an external engineering partner: Salesforce integration, audit trail and a validation harness. Design principle: the model reads, code decides, people judge. Provisional answers in minutes rather than days, with every conclusion traceable to a fact, a source document and a numbered rule. Wrote growth strategy and plan. Hiring the GTM engineering, sales and marketing team. ### Founder, Capo (2025-01 – present) United Kingdom · Built a casual football app used in 15 countries, for fun and because I wanted to use it. No company or funding behind it. It's how I learnt to build production software with AI, evenings and weekends. - Multi-tenant SaaS architecture, advanced algorithmic features, payments - Web platform plus native iOS and Android apps from a single codebase - SEO automated with AI - 200,000+ lines of production code, solo ### Interim CEO / COO, CEO/COO (2024-01 – 2026-06) Global Karting League, Interim Head of: built the commercial model, marketing funnel and acquisition infrastructure (website, booking system, ads, SEO), set up OKRs and the operating cadence. Concluded with Porsche investment stake in place of a Series A. Chatsie, Interim COO: GTM framework, pricing, messaging and operational scale-up systems for a health-tech business. ### Investor, Ventures Together (2022-09 – 2025-08) United Kingdom · Ventures Together (VT) is an community of 150+ of Europe's leading tech entrepreneurs and operators who angel invest and help companies together. Selected investments include AI, fintech, IoT, and healthtech startups. ### CEO / Founder, Beyond (2016-04 – 2023-12) London Area, United Kingdom · Founded, built and sold Beyond: a consumer marketplace and will-writing SaaS platform (the UK's largest funeral comparison site), acquired by Dignity PLC. - Product and technology: created the pricing comparison engine adopted nationally; built a 5-star will-writing platform through the CMA's reform of the sector. - Growth: 1.4M+ annual users and 30% market share through SEO, content, affiliates, partnerships and paid media; 1,500+ funeral director partners; CreativePool Brand of the Year and The Drum Advertising Award. - Ran product, engineering, operations, marketing, fundraising and the board. ### Managing Director, Pollen (formerly Verve) (2013-07 – 2017-01) London, United Kingdom · Joined a festival agency running on Excel and turned it into a global event-tech SaaS business: 800+ people, £30M+ revenue, five countries, #7 in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100. Set up the engineering team from scratch. Built the platform as an internal tool for large festival clients, then commercialised it to 300+ festivals (Event Technology Award winner). Built the B2B2C growth engine (ambassador programmes, digital funnels, enterprise sales) across Europe, the US, Canada and Asia. $30M raised. ### Strategy Consultant, Maddox Consulting (2011-08 – 2013-07) London, United Kingdom · Led strategic workstreams for Stagecoach, Siemens, Barclays; key contributor to £1.2B rail franchise bid. ### CEO / Founder, Buzzboard (2009-09 – 2011-08) London, United Kingdom · Founded and exited a digital advertising network connecting local brands with high-footfall retail locations across London ### Operations Director (Digital Cinema), Arts Alliance Media (2005-01 – 2007-09) London Area, United Kingdom · Built national operations for the world’s first digital cinema network; delivered £12M rollout. The business was later sold to Luxin Rio. ### Commercial and Operations Manager, TRM Corporation (now NoteMachine) (1999-01 – 2004-12) West Sussex · Joined as the third European employee; five promotions to running engineering, service, compliance, supply chain and nationwide operations as the network grew from 0 to 3,000+ ATMs. Part of the core team through the £47M exit to NoteMachine. ## Education ### EMBA in (Executive Masters in Business Administration), London Business School (2007-01 – 2009-01) CORE: Strategic Management, Developing Effective Organisations, Decision and Risk Analysis, Corporate Finance, Operations & Technology Mgmt, Financial Accounting, Entrepreneurial Management, Marketing, Managerial Accounting, Corporate Social Responsibility, Managerial Economics, Managerial Statistics, Understanding General Mgmt, Leadership Skills, International Macro Economics ELECTIVES: New Venture Development, Managing the Growing Business, Financing the Entrepreneurial Business, Thinking Strategically–Game Theory, Internet Marketing, Brand Management, MarkStrat, Creative & Personal Mastery, Computerised Financial Modelling Overseas Consulting Assignments: Alfa Bank (Ukraine), Ernst & Young (South Africa) ### BSc in Politics, University of Southampton ### Academic Scholarship, Cranleigh School, Cranleigh, Surrey ### Academic Scholarship, Pennthorpe School, Rudgwick, Surrey ## Skills GTM Architecture & Commercial Ops, SaaS & Marketplace Strategy, Operational Scaling (0–1000+), AI-Augmented Product Development, M&A / Exit Execution, Organisational Design & Transformation, International Expansion, Fundraising & Investor Relations (£80M+ raised), Data-driven Decision Making, Complex Regulated Environments, Product Development, ATM Networks, Digital Cinema, Software Architectural Design, Hardware Architecture, Slide Decks, Bid Writing, Go-to-Market Strategy, Financial Modeling, React Native, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Full-Stack Development, Software Development, Software Architecture, Interim Management, Capital Raising, Team Management, Operations Management, Entrepreneurship, Start-ups, Business Strategy, Leadership, Marketing Strategy, Management Consulting, Management, Growing Businesses, E-commerce, Advertising, Marketing, Digital Marketing, Fundraising, Managerial Finance, Public Relations, Strategic Partnerships, Executive Management, Early Stage Ventures, Start-ups Management, Project Management, Strategic Thinking, Venture Development ## Credentials - **GOLD - CreativePool - Branding** (issued 2019-01) - **GOLD - TransformAwards - Branding** (issued 2019-01) - **GOLD - TransformAwards - Branding** (issued 2019-01) - **Spectator Economic Disruptor of the Year - Finalist** — The Spectator (issued 2019-01) - **Sunday Times TechTrack 100 (#7)** (issued 2015-01) --- Source: https://saywise.com/member1650 (last modified 2026-10-06T07:43:32.174Z)