Richard Harpin
British businessman
Sir Richard David Harpin (born 10 September 1964) is a British entrepreneur, investor and author. He founded HomeServe in 1993 and served as its chief executive until 2023.
Harpin is also founder of the investment fund Growth Partner and owns Business Leader, a peer-to-peer community for entrepreneurs in the UK. In 2024, The Sunday Times Rich List estimated his family net worth at £670 million. In July 2025, he published How to Make a Billion in 9 Steps which debuted in its first week as a Sunday Times bestseller.
Early life and education
Harpin was born in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, and grew up in Northumberland. His father was a civil servant, and his mother was an occupational therapist. His paternal great-grandparents owned and operated a wool recycling mill.
Harpin attended the Royal Grammar School in Newcastle and later graduated from the University of York with a bachelor's degree in economics. As a student, he sold conkers to classmates and operated a mail-order business for fishing tackle and earrings. At York, he launched a student magazine, Connect.
“Richard Harpin” enters the record as british businessman. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Richard, Harpin and British can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Richard Harpin” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.