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George Buchanan
George leads on all our marketing and communication activities. He joined GCP in 2021 and has over 12 years’ marketing experience.
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2025 Portfolio Review: A Year of Driving Growth Across the Knowledge Economy
As 2025 draws to a close, we’re pleased to reflect on another year of meaningful progress across the GCP portfolio. Against a backdrop of market complexity and rapid technological change, our partners have continued to demonstrate resilience, creativity and ambition, expanding internationally, strengthening leadership teams, launching new products, and earning industry recognition.
What unites these businesses is a shared commitment to building long-term, sustainable value. Whether through responsible innovation, talent development or deeper customer engagement, each team has taken important steps forward on its growth journey this year. We’re proud to support them and grateful for the trust they continue to place in us.
Below is a selection of highlights from across the portfolio in 2025:
Coolr continued its strong upward trajectory, expanding internationally with the appointment of a President to lead its New York operations and strengthening its UK leadership team with a new COO. Creative excellence across the agency was recognised with a large number of award nominations including wins from The Drum, Provoke Media, Campaign UK and the TikTok Awards. The ‘‘At The Water Coolr’’ podcast also continued to support the team to build momentum as a leading voice in social-first creativity.
CloudRock delivered another impressive year of growth and innovation. The company was named to the FT1000 Europe’s Fastest-Growing Companies list for the second consecutive year and won Digital Transformation Company of the Year at the GP Bullhound Awards. Its development team also won the Workday Dublin Hackathon and submitted four new apps to the Workday Marketplace, underscoring both technical excellence and strategic ambition. CloudRock further expanded its capability through a new partnership with The GC Index and the launch of Workday Global Payroll Connect, a major step forward in enabling seamless global payroll integration.
A landmark year for ETC, marked by the opening of its first studio in New York, led by Antonia Vlasto, and a number of incredible hires across the UK and US to support the continuing expansion of the business. Creatively, the studio secured 30+ award nominations, achieving wins at the VES Awards and AdAge, and taking home a fourth consecutive Televisual Commercials 30 title, further cementing its reputation as a leading global VFX studio.
2025 saw the launch of Crosstide’s new brand, marking its evolution from 101 Ways and reinforcing its identity as a leading specialist consulting partner across custom software engineering, data and AI-led transformation programmes. The business also deepened its thought leadership through its ‘‘Change the Narrative’’ series, exploring modern engineering culture and the realities of driving impactful digital transformation.
Plenitude entered a new chapter with the appointment of Louise Brett as CEO, bringing deep experience in financial services and innovation. Founder Alan Paterson became Chief Innovation Officer, leading the next wave of AI-led compliance and assurance capabilities. The firm continued to shape regulatory thinking through insights including ‘‘From Fines to Fixes’’ and ‘‘In AI We Trust’’, while expanding its technology and data-led compliance solutions.
Robiquity delivered major product innovation with Evri, launching “Hey! Charli,” an Agentic AI HR assistant, and an automated driver recruitment app, work that won the GSA Award for AI/Automation Programme of the Year. The business also joined the BlueLight Commercial National RPA Framework, expanding its reach across UK policing, and continued to lead industry thinking on responsible AI and low-code automation. The company’s growth and performance were also recognised with the BVCA Vision 2025 North West Scale-Up Award, highlighting its continued trajectory as a leading UK automation and AI transformation partner.
Container Solutions continued to combine deep cloud-native expertise with influential thought leadership. The team expanded its industry presence with ‘’The Cloud Native Attitude’’ podcast and the release of Jamie Dobson’s latest book, ‘’Visionaries, Rebels and Machines’’. A major milestone was the launch of the Open Source Compliance Framework, enabling teams to automate and streamline continuous compliance.
Flint celebrated its 10th anniversary while strengthening its position as a leading international adviser on political, policy and regulatory issues. Flint’s experts were widely featured across major outlets including the Financial Times, Bloomberg, Sky News, the BBC Today Programme and Times Radio, reflecting its growing influence and recognition. In December, GCP signed a binding agreement to realise its investment in Flint, with Cinven set to become the firm’s new investment partner before the end of the year.
Indigo strengthened its leadership team with the appointment of Michel Robert as Group CEO, bringing extensive experience scaling technology services businesses. The company continued to build capability across its fibre, wireless and network services divisions, supporting long-term international growth.
GTS FLEXIBLE MATERIALS GROUP LIMITED
GTS expanded its specialist materials offering with the launch of GTS3490, a new halogen-free flame-retardant product for safety-critical applications. The business also invested in people development through Six Sigma training and strengthened alignment across its international sales teams.
JKR enjoyed a standout year, being named Fast Company’s Design Company of the Year and delivering major rebrands for Yahoo, Mozilla, Walmart, RSPCA and Twix. The agency earned extensive recognition across Cannes Lions, D&AD and the Brand Impact Awards, while continuing to shape the industry through thought leadership and expanded creative leadership teams in London and New York.
JHG continued its progression under new CEO John Farrell, strengthening operational capability and reinforcing its role as a trusted delivery partner to major UK network operators.
Welcoming Our New Partners: 2025 also saw strong new investment activity at GCP, with a number of ambitious businesses joining the portfolio. In July, we were pleased to announce our investment in Nurtur the UK’s leading provider of lead generation, marketing automation and data insight software for the estate agency and home mover market. Our partnership will support Nurtur in deepening its client relationships, accelerating product innovation and advancing its new conversational AI capabilities.
In December, we welcomed Optima Partners and Strata FSC to the GCP portfolio. Optima brings a market-leading blend of applied data, machine learning, AI transformation and deep sector expertise, supporting global enterprises through customer value, operational excellence and modern data foundations. Strata FSC, one of a small number of global BlackRock Aladdin partners, continues its rapid international growth as a specialist consultancy supporting complex system and data transformations for asset managers and asset owners worldwide.
We are proud to partner with these innovative and ambitious businesses and look forward to supporting their continued growth and progress in the years ahead.