Simon Hill, CEO and co-founder of offshore legal software development company Xperate, has been recognised as ‘One to Watch’ in LDC’s Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders 2025, which is supported by and featured in The Times newspaper. The LDC Top 50 showcases the UK’s best business leaders from medium-sized, fast-growing companies.
LDC is the private equity arm of Lloyds Banking Group and the Top 50 was created to celebrate leaders who are driving business growth and the UK economy. The criteria for the programme, which this year received almost 700 nominations, includes high revenue growth, a positive impact on people, and international expansion.
Xperate was founded by Hill and chief operating officer Mark Garnish in October 2021 and now hires 160 people, a substantial number of which are in India, which is a focus of international diplomacy as the UK looks to build out its global trade relationships.
Xperate leverages but also manages an extraordinary talent pool in Pune, partnering with and making that workforce more accessible to law firms and technology businesses. The company, which is bootstrapped and has grown in turnover by 50% a year, is entering its next phase of growth, with plans to expand into South America, the Middle East and South-East Asia. It is targeting £50m annual revenue within five years and plans to grow to 750 people globally.
Speaking to Legal IT Insider, Hill said: “It’s a huge honour to be recognised as One to Watch in The LDC Top 50 Business Leaders.
“We’re providing a really high-quality offshore development service that a lot of people wouldn’t have had access to before. We’re good not just on the development side but at looking after people and are working with everyone from start ups to some of the biggest names in legal, where they need the level of skill that Mark and the team have in developing these projects. With no outside funding we’ve grown to 160 people and if you look around in legal technology that is phenomenal growth. Ultimately, it’s all about the power of people.”
Also featuring in LDC’s Ones to Watch this year is Tom Dunlop, CEO of global contract lifecycle management solution Summize; and Chris Green, CEO of AI due diligence solution Xapien. Other recent LDC legal entries include risk services and tech provider rradar, where founder and CEO Gary Gallen was featured last year.
See here for the full Top 50: https://www.ldc.co.uk/top-50/2025/
