Press Release - The Professional Alternative
Derek Southall, Steve Parrott and Sarah Katherine (SK) Bagshaw join forces to create a bold new business acceleration platform for law firms and accountancy practices.
The trio, respectively owners of Hyperscale Group, Alternative Events and Alternative Insights, will launch the new platform, The Professional Alternative (The Professional Alternative), aimed at legal and accountancy, in Summer 2021.
The Professional Alternative is a subscription-based business acceleration platform aimed at professional services firm leadership teams, offering business expertise, practical tools and best practice in the business of running a professional services firm.
Firms are under significant pressure to change how they deliver business support, to improve margins and to accelerate innovation – Covid-19 has increased the imperative to change. Simultaneously they face unprecedented technological change and a tsunami of new solutions. The Professional Alternative provides professional services firms with a central, trusted, curated, information resource and support platform that will help them to get things done – faster, cheaper and to the requisite standard.
Subscribers will have access to a huge array of applications and resources, customised to their needs, including the latest thought leadership, peer content, market overviews and best-practice guides. Information will be delivered when, where and how users demand, across a variety of media. The platform has already secured first-round investment.
Conceived during the UK’s first Covid-19 lockdown in the Spring of 2020, the founders were inspired to help law firms and accountancy practices accelerate out of the pandemic.
The founders’ complimentary businesses - Alternative Events, media platform Alternative Insights and consultancy Hyperscale Group - will continue to operate and expand with additional management resources.
Steve Parrott, Co-Founder & Director, The Professional Alternative and Co-Founder & Director of Alternative Events, is a well-known connector with deep expertise in the legal technology sector. Steve has been bringing together CEOs and technology leaders within professional services and beyond for more than 20 years. Steve is passionate about connecting people, businesses and ideas. Active in the legal technology market for decades, Steve is an entrepreneur, an unrivalled networker and a “people-person” whose warm and friendly approach helps him to forge connections wherever he goes. Steve has worked in business partnership with Sarah Katherine Bagshaw for over 10 years and together they have built a community of over 8000 professional services leaders and created trusted media and event platforms for collaboration, innovation and best practice.
Derek Southall, Co-Founder & Director, The Professional Alternative and Founder and Director of Hyperscale Group, is a high profile and very well-connected figure in the legal technology, innovation, knowledge management and digital marketplaces. Derek spent nearly 25 years in a range of leading strategic roles for a top 50 global law firm, for most of this time as a Partner and Head of Strategic Development and subsequently as Head of Digital and Innovation.
Derek was ranked by the FT as one of the top three most innovative lawyers in the UK in its first study into the legal market. Derek also led the firm’s technology team to become ranked by the FT as the most innovative in Europe and subsequently the firm to ranked as the FT’s second most innovative firm in Europe as well as picking up a range of other awards. Derek chairs and was one of the founders of the Legal IT Innovators Group (www.litig.org) is also a founder member of www.intuityalliance.com, a member of the advisory Board of the Institute for Global Innovation and is a Non-Executive Director of Fliplet.
Sarah Katherine (SK) Bagshaw, Co-Founder & Director, The Professional Alternative and Co-Founder & Director of Alternative Events, has spent over 20 years creating insightful and innovative content journeys and learning experiences for business CEOs and technology leaders. During this time, SK has developed a deep understanding of how to curate information and build business communities. SK has in-depth of knowledge of the day-to-day technology, people and leadership challenges facing professional services. SK has worked in business partnership with Steve Parrott for over 10 years. Together they have built a trusted media brand and the Alternative community of over 8000 professional services leaders who come together to network, collaborate and innovate.
“Professional services firms want to shift the dial from business support to fee-earning activity. They are looking for capacity and expertise, insight and direction,” said Steve Parrott. “We are very excited to develop this new service that will help firms accelerate their businesses.”
“Every professional service firm goes through mergers, buys new tech, implements AI and grapples with digital transformation. Every firm has to reinvent the wheel and in doing this often struggles accessing best practice – sometimes it wastes valuable fee-earner time” said Derek Southall. “The Professional Alternative will help firms by accelerating access to best practice – it will enable them to stop focusing on the day-to-day and will enable them to focus on areas which are more strategically important and above all their clients.”
“Digitally-driven transformation is accelerating innovation in professional services”, said S K Bagshaw. “There has never been a better time for a team of bold and creative minds to join together to achieve extraordinary results – a gold standard objective source of information that is available online and on-demand.”
Editor’s Note: To arrange an interview with Derek Southall, Steve Parrott or Sarah Katherine (SK) Bagshaw, please contact Sharon Lygo at sharonlygo@hyperscalegroup.com
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About Hyperscale Group
Founded by Derek Southall 4 years ago, www.hyperscalegroup.com is an advisory and implementation business helping clients develop strategies for and overcome challenges with technology, digital, operations, knowledge management and innovation. Hyperscale Group works for a range of large global businesses, legal and compliance departments, professional services firms, venture capitalists, litigation funders and start-ups in a range of jurisdictions around the globe. Hyperscale Group Limited - Derek Southall
About Alternative Events
Founded in 2015 by Sarah Katherine (SK) Bagshaw and Steve Parrott, Alternative Events is wholly focused on the UK’s dynamic and fast-changing professional services technology market: real estate advisory, law firms, accountancy practices, management consultancies, and in-house legal. Through in-person and virtual events, and through the media platform Alternative Insights, Alternative Events provides high-value insight into technology and business leadership for legal, accountancy, real estate advisory, management consultancy and in-house legal teams.
Alternative Events
About Alternative Insights
Media platform Alternative Insights is the home of knowledge, insights and innovation news for professional service firms. With a subscriber base of nearly 8,000 contacts and an extensive catalogue of content, Alternative Insights demonstrates the market interest for information about best practice and innovation within the UK professional services sector. Alternative Insights | Business Articles for the Professional Services
