hedgehog lab

As the co-founder and CEO of hedgehog lab, I grew the company from 3 people in a small corner of the North East of England in 2011 to around a 100+ people globally with major presence in the UK & US.

I'm responsible for 4 key things in my role,

- Culture. I believe that culture eats strategy for breakfast and I see myself as the custodian of culture ensuring we always have a north star in everything we do based on our culture framework of purpose, vision, mission & values. 

Key achievements include driving our employee experience programme that has resulted in a rating of 4.9 on Glassdoor and 100% CEO approval rating for me. I'm also a champion of DEI and wellbeing, starting and running key initiatives like our mental health support programs, flexible working and wellbeing support.

- Strategy. Having a great culture by and itself does not drive business performance, so I spend a significant amount of time defining and executing strategy in collaboration with my brilliant management team.

Key achievements include pivoting to mobile specialism to capture the demand & establishing,  growing a US presence now accounting for 40% of our revenue, and raising £2m+ in funding from Private Equity Investors.

- Growth. I have led the commercial and growth teams at hedgehog lab since inception including directly owning the Head of Sales role ensuring hedgehog lab posted CAGR of nearly 60% in our scale up journey. I've also been the de facto CMO of the company setting and driving the marketing vision. Currently lead the Growth teams consisting of Sales, Marketing & Client Engagement.

Key achievements include achieving a #1 global ranking for mobile app development with analysts Clutch, being named in the Financial Times Top 1000 Fastest Growing European companies 2 years in a row and raising Private Equity funding to drive scale up growth.

- Governance. As the CEO and the majority individual shareholder on the Board of Directors, I work with other Directors and investors.

Chief Executive Officer

Subject Matter Expert for Financial Services at hedgehog lab due to my expertise advising and supporting banks, insurance, wealth management and fintech customers like Aviva, AJ Bell, Atom Bank, Coventry Building Society, Cynergy Bank, Davidson Kempner, Tesco Bank, and many others.

My expertise in helping craft and work through critical digital transformation, CX initiatives and technology programmes helps me be the "voice" of FS in the business.

I believe that the biggest problem facing transformation in FS isn't a technological but a human one of culture change, mindset, skills and building high-performance teams.

I'm also one of those people that is excited at reading the FCA's annual priorities on a weekend than a magazine

Financial Services Lead

Co-founded hedgehog lab to create a place that empowers talented people to do the best work of their lives. Constantly working hard to live up to our purpose as a culture custodian.

Co-Founder

equiwatt

Supporting this exciting start-up with strategic advice on go to market strategy, marketing approach and growth plans. A great chance to combine by passion of the sustainability/EV market with digital product.

Advisor

PNE is a North East based business support organisation that enables positive social and economic change by supporting businesses to start, grow and thrive in an ethical and sustainable way. I am delighted to join the Board as a Non-exec bringing my experience of sales, marketing and scaling high growth business to help PNE set ambitious growth targets and facilitate a wider impact for businesses in the region.

Non Executive Director

BIMA (British Interactive Media Association)

Providing mentorship and advice to agency leaders & CEOs who are going through their scale-up journey using my experience and battle-tested frameworks.

Mentor

Netsells

Acquired Netsells to accelerate our Phase 2 journey to become the most respected tech consultancy in the world, backed by UK’s best growth investors, BGF.

New College Durham

New College Durham is one of the largest FE and HE colleges in the North East named by OFSTED as an Outstanding performer and with a reputation for being financially well managed and putting students first. I am a Governor on the Board of Governors helping guide the College in strategy, digital-first focus, employability for students and overseeing general governance. It's great to bring my diverse background and experience to help support the talent of tomorrow.

Governor

Mentor on the BT Ethnically Diverse Mentorship Programme helping mentor the next generation of leaders from minority backgrounds, while giving mentees a unique opportunity to develop their personal brand and receive support in furthering their careers. A chance for me to drive the DEI agenda and develop future diverse leaders.

Cheer.One

Advising a HR SaaS product start-up on Product Strategy, Culture & Growth.

Strategic Advisor

TH_NK

Experienced in leading projects and delivering enterprise solutions in the financial services sector with a focus on Microsoft based solutions.

Role on projects:
- Defining overall system architecture and design
- Defining development standards and naming conventions
- Working with Project Leads and Project Managers to plan and create specifications.
- Define interfaces
- Define system integration points
- Work with team on requirements analysis and early systems analysis and design stages.

Technical Consultant

Was responsible for overseeing the internal planning, detailed design and delivery of quality code. This included working collaboratively with key project stakeholders within the company, third-party suppliers and the client. 

Responsibilities

Worked with key stakeholders to define internal schedule, technical deliverables and resource requirements.
Lead the team to develop quality design and code for the project.
Participated in hands-on development as part of the team effort.
Contributed to the ongoing architectural evolution in an architectural role.
Took ownership of all technical deliverables.
Optimised workload by assigning tasks to developers based on strengths and interests.
Worked with Project Management and Account Director to ensure project delivery is of high quality.
Worked with third party suppliers and manage technical channels of communication.
Attended technical reviews and meetings with client and third party suppliers.

Lead Analyst / Developer

Spark Response

Involved in building internal web-based apps for the logistics and operational departments of the company.

Web Consultant

I am a passionate and experienced entrepreneur in the digital and software industry, with over 16 years of leading and growing hedgehog lab, a human-centred global tech consultancy. I co-founded hedgehog lab in 2007 and transformed it from a small web development agency to a multi-million-pound company with over 100 employees and offices in the UK, US, and Bulgaria. As the CEO, I am responsible for setting the company’s vision, strategy, and culture and overseeing operations, finances, and business development.

In April 2023, I acquired Netsells, another UK-based tech consultancy, to accelerate our mission to become the most respected tech consultancy in the world. Together, we offer custom app development and digital transformation services to our partners, including AJ Bell, Deliveroo, Kodak Alaris, and Tesco Bank. We leverage our UXR, UI/UX, engineering, AI, cloud, and data science expertise to deliver human-centred solutions that drive real business impact.

I am also an active advisor, mentor, and non-executive director for several organisations, where I share my insights and knowledge on digital innovation, leadership, and entrepreneurship.

Important : Views shared on my LinkedIn are personal and do not reflect the views of hedgehog lab.

Sarat Pediredla 🦔

I have been saying for a while that AI is closer to an industrial revolution for knowledge work than a new software rollout. This new BCG piece, “As AI Changes Work, CEOs Must Change How Work Happens”, finally puts some structure and data around that intuition.
 
What really jumps out at me is the gap between tool use and work design. BCG’s AI at Work 2025 survey suggests that nearly three in four employees are already using AI regularly, yet only around a third feel they have had proper training, and only about 36 percent are satisfied with it. We have quietly pushed AI into the flow of work, but we have not done the harder thinking about what jobs are actually for in this new context.
 
Most corporate AI programmes are framed as “implementation”. Stand up a few copilots, run some training sessions, publish a policy, tick the board paper. The uncomfortable truth is that if AI takes on a meaningful chunk of the task load, the real work is to rethink roles, skills, org design and performance. Our current job architecture was not written for a world where every employee has a capable machine partner sitting beside them.
 
You can see this clearly in software teams. If AI can write large parts of the code, what is the human developer now optimising for? Things like quality control, judgment, problem framing, system design, cross functional collaboration and coaching models. That is a very different job description to “produce X lines of code” and it demands different hiring, training and performance conversations.
 
BCG also talks about the talent pyramid starting to bend. Fewer pure entry level roles. More specialists at the top. A middle layer that shifts from traditional people management to coaching and integrating AI into the work. At the same time, digital skills are spreading across sales, marketing and operations, while the supply of experienced people still lags. That forces a very practical question for CEOs: where in your organisation do you want scarce human expertise, and what do you want it doing alongside AI, hour by hour.
 
If we take the industrial revolution analogy seriously, the big prize is not “using AI in every function”. It is redesigning the factory floor of knowledge work itself. For each critical role, leaders will need to keep asking:
 
❓ What can safely move to AI, and under what guardrails?
❓ What higher value work do we expect humans to do with the time that is freed?
❓ How will we recruit, train and reward people for that new shape of work, not the old one?
 
I am convinced we will look back on this period as the biggest shift in how work happens since computers first arrived on desks. The organisations that move first will not be the ones with the most AI tools. They will be the ones that treat AI as a reason to redesign work from first principles, with their people, not just their tech stack, at the centre.
 
 More:

Sarat Pediredla 

CEO & Founder w/ PE experience | NED & Chair | Scaling digital companies through culture, growth, turnarounds & transformation | 🏆 AI 100 UK | 🏆 BIMA 100

Open article: As AI Changes Work, CEOs Must Change How Work Happens by bcg.com

As AI Changes Work, CEOs Must Change How Work Happens

CIPD

CIPD's Employer Solutions team manage the relationship between national and international organisations and their HR/L&D professional body. We work in partnership to raise the professionalism of HR/L&D and are responsible for building the B2B proposition to deliver significant uplifts in revenue which is then reinvested in pursuit our purpose. 

Working closely with HR/L&D leaders we help to define 'gold standards' around 'people' based functions and raise the awareness and commitment to developing a professional approach to HR/L&D. In partnership we seek to create future fit HR/L&D functions that positively impact on organisations and are valued in the same was as other departments such as finance, sales and marketing etc. 

This is achieved through a consultative approach which identifies gaps and establishes solutions. Specifically we identify areas where CIPD core competencies can add real value. The CIPD Profession Map provides organisations with the template for international HR standards and capabilities to benchmark against. Our core training / development programmes, qualifications and consultancy services provide the route map for HR professionalisation.

Senior Employer Solutions Manager

Bippit

Founding member and 1st employee of Bippit supporting business from pre-seed through multiple funding rounds.

- First hire of the organisation, creating and scaling the sales function of the business from zero to over £1.2m+ ARR. 
- Key stakeholder assisting in fundraising activities for Bippit from pre-seed through multiple fund-raising rounds.
- Personally signed 120+ new clients (over 75% of all Bippit contracts) for the business supporting ICP creation and GTM strategy. Recruited, trained and managed original sales, SDR and client success teams while over achieving with the highest business quota in tandem.

Bippit's vision is to create fairer society, where everyone has access to a financial expert, and all the tools they need for a better future, no matter their background, situation, or bank balance.

Founding member - Wellbeing Director

Evelyn Partners

- Helping to launch and support Evelyn's new digital financial wellbeing and coaching solution, Moneyhealth to the market.
- Working in tandem with Business partners and consultants to introduce solution to existing and new Evelyn clients.

Evelyn is the UK’s leading integrated wealth management and professional services group, supporting clients’ combined wealth and tax needs, personal and business.

Financial Wellbeing Consultant

YuLife

Supporting Series A to Series B funding raise.

- Employed to assist business preparation from series A to series B funding rounds in terms of pipeline generation, forecasting and sales processes.
- Generated 33% of all direct contracts signed for the business in 2020 (20) generating £1,188,943.14 direct and an additional £331,562.81 indirect revenue to date.
- Assisted and trained junior members of the team through the enterprise sales process while setting up the outbound structure resulting in an increase in team pipeline generation by over 46%.

Fintech disruptor in the insurance space. If you inspire someone to live a longer, happier, healthier life - it is good for the person, good for their company, good for society and good for the insurer.

Sales/Wellbeing Director

UpSlide

Contractor to facilitate the implementation of MEDDIC sales methodology to the organisation.

- Restructuring and Implemented new processes, systems, and methodologies, such as MEDDIC, to improve current sales team setup assisting in the evolution of the business to  become more data focused.
- Directly managing and training both sales and SDR teams providing daily leadership, onboarding and training to the Sales Development team (5 BDM’s, 4 SDR’s).
Continue to manage Inbound and Outbound SDR’s daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly activities (115% of target).
- Attending high value/strategic customer meetings alongside the team as the executive presence for the company.

UpSlide is a leading Microsoft Gold Partner, with a simple mission, to help people work better. Supplying businesses globally in over 60 countries with it’s unique plug-in to dramatically improve the functionality of users of Microsoft Office suite (Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Power BI).

Head Of Sales, UK

Wagestream

Founding member and 1st employee, helping build the business through from pre-seed to Series B funding rounds raising over $45m.

- Founding member of the organisation, which has expanded to a team of 60+ employees. Responsibilities have included building, designing and managing all stages of the sales process for the organisation. 
- Building the business from zero to over 93 signed Wagestream clients. Achievements include; top sales performer for signed SaaS contracts, total employees enrolled (26.89%), total new sales SaaS revenue generated (43%) and for transfer revenue generated (23.56%) for the organisation.
- Supported the recruited, training and management of both sales and SDR teams while directly line managing the SDR team (team of 5). 

Europe's #1 Benefit for Employee Financial Wellness. Wagestream allows employees to get instant access to their earned wages whilst working seamlessly alongside a businesses payroll function.

Founding member - Sales/Wellbeing Director

Re-Leased Property Software

Adapted contracting structure to release cash flow to enable the business to grow.

- Consistently met and exceeded SaaS sales targets MoM averaging 147% of target achieving the 2nd best sales figures globally for the organisation.
- Introduced procedures for new business which resolved the cashflow concerns of the organisation and significantly reduced business churn rates.
- Recruited, line managed and trained the pilot SDR team of the organisation. The success resulted in the model being duplicated in both Australian and New Zealand markets. 

A Cloud-based property management software, designed to deliver better residential and commercial property returns. www.re-leased.com

UK Sales Manager

Movebubble

Achieved over 72% market penetration.

- Responsible for leading and managing the sales team, I introduced efficiencies and improved
processes & structure, resulting in an increase of revenue partners by 625% in under 6 months
- Executed a data driven commercial strategy to target key growth areas and increase marketplace
liquidity. The result was a significant overachievement of forecast target and 100%+ revenue
growth MoM
- Led, managed and implemented Movebubble’s brand partnership programme, adding key accounts
such as Deliveroo, to grow renter audience and reduce customer acquisition costs to maintain 10%
demand growth MoM
- Spearheaded multiple initiatives to increase company conversions rates, for example through
communication optimisation, non-financial market place incentives and improvements to customer
service.

Strategic Sales and Partnership Manager

YPlan

Achieved most successful new city launch in YPlan history.

- Launched company expansion into the Irish market, looking after all areas of planning,
implementation and execution of strategy.
- Dublin expansion became the most successful new city launch in the companies history exceeding
all revenue, net revenue and user targets.
- Completed all stages of the sales cycle in both London and Dublin markets. Continually over
exceeded monthly sales targets averaging over 250% of monthly revenue targets-

Senior Sales and Partnership Development Manager - Dublin & London

Groupon

Top 3 revenue generator over 600+ UK sales team and achieving Presidents Club status.

- Proactively sourcing, pitching and closing new business features to continually expand the range of offers available to Groupon’s subscriber base.  Over my employment period I averaged 324.31% of target becoming the 7th highest overall earner of the business in competition with 600+ sales members and part of the Groupon Presidents Club.
- Continually closing ‘Dreamlist’ accounts to meet KPI targets MoM and develop key long term partners for the company in specified target markets across Ireland and London.
- Actively participating in coaching and mentoring of new employees, outlining data driven processes, accurate forecasting and knowledge on both the UK and Irish markets.

Business Development Manager: Ireland/UK

Working with disruptive tech to make a real difference to employees lives.

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Sarat Pediredla 🦔

Andrew Robert Fenwick (Assoc. CIPD)

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The Battle

Sarat Pediredla 🦔

Andrew Robert Fenwick (Assoc. CIPD)

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Sarat Pediredla 🦔's LinkedIn Performance

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