Zandra Moore is the CEO and Co-Founder of leading business intelligence and predictive analytics firm, Panintelligence and founder of the No Code Lab and LeanIn Leeds. Zandra has over 25 years experience in the technology sector, and a passion for enabling businesses to drive performance through data insights and analytics. Part of the team which incubated Panintelligence at Pancredit – she pushed for the management buyout of this division which completed in March 2014 with the former FD and CTO, investing her own life savings of £60k.
Can you tell us a little about your background and the company?
I have spent most of my career in technology sales, partly inspired by my mum – a pioneer in Freeserve. Becoming a Mum myself in my twenties, I tried to find flexible sales director roles but none existed, so I created my own tech sales training business – operating in Australia, Asia and across the UK.
I have always been passionate about changing diversity in the tech industry and the wider world. When I see a problem or barrier, I feel drawn to creating a solution. I want to be at the forefront of moving the dial on diversity in tech and leadership and challenging the diversity rules.
Panintelligence started in 2014 and has grown to be a leading business intelligence and analytics software developer. The award-winning BI software Pi offers comprehensive reporting, visualisation and AI driven predictive modelling, ensuring all businesses can harness the power of their data.
How have you been able to gain funding and grow?
Since 2014, I have been growing Panintelligence. As CEO I have grown the company from six to 45 people, with 30 percent year-on-year organic growth. Despite scepticism from the original seed investors, I raised £4.5m series A funding. This capital has supported the business to develop the product and focus on winning new customers in the high-growth cloud software space which accelerated as a result of Covid and remote working.
I had to quickly to learn about fundraising, going on the PwC scale-up program and working with mentors to understand the process and language. I achieved six offers – five from Yorkshire and one from London. As a mum in her forties, from Yorkshire, I was having to sell myself harder than my male co-founder and also having to sell Leeds as a place to grow a business before pitching the business itself.
I’m building the business by recruiting leading industry figures to ensure rapid and smooth scaling. An example is Charlotte Bailey as Operations Director – formerly Experian, DWP, an ex-fighter pilot and brilliant role model to other women in the business. Having female leaders is helping us to attract women into traditionally difficult to recruit areas like development – with women accounting for 30% of the technical team. The industry average is 17%.
Panintelligence is a product company with 90% of revenue recurring (minimum of 2-year contracts) and very scaleable. We scale by starting a platform to meet the needs of a market where we are working and understand it, meeting the needs of those customers.
What were/are the challenges and how have you overcome these?
The biggest challenge for Panintelligence is being found by our ideal customer. We compete with Microsoft, Google and Salesforce who have huge marketing budgets. So competing on advertising spend is not an option for us. We have to be highly disciplined in how we use our resources so we take a hunter approach to finding our customers. When we find and win them they are delighted we have hunted them down….why? We have a better product, we build awesome partnerships and it costs our customers less. What’s not to love!? So, more investment into our sales and marketing engine will go a long way to enabling our growth.
What are your plans now/for the future?
The vision for the business is to reach £10m turnover in four years and to grow from 45 to 70+ employees. Series B funding is likely to happen sooner rather than later as the team scale-up with more ambitious plans for growth.
What would you like to share with others to encourage them to start their own entrepreneurship journey?
My journey to entrepreneurship was forced through lack of flexible working options in the tech sector at the time. As a new Mum, I was determined to keep my hand in the industry that I love, which also moves at lightening speed. So, I felt I had to find a solution to ensure an enforced break so childcare didn’t limit my career options. I never knew starting a consultancy business would lead to me founding and leading a software product company. But by taking the first step to self-employment and going out on my own I found myself here. So my advice to anyone is take a leap, it’s not a one way street. If it doesn’t work out, you can always get a job again. Life begins at the edge of your comfort zone.
Can you share you top tips for entrepreneurial success?
My top tip for entrepreneurial success would be, stay true to yourself and your values. As you grow a business your people are your biggest asset and leading by example is good, but lead as you. Don’t compromise yourself or your values. People will see through that and it will be harder to lead a team to success. Trust yourself and your instincts, recruit people better than you, then get out of their way.
Who are the 5 people who inspire you the most and why?
I am mostly inspired by every day people. Values led grafters who quietly get on with being brilliant at what they do. Often unsung heros, often women who – against all odds – manage the juggle of family life, the barriers to their careers, the unconscious bias of others, the glass ceilings in industry, investment, education etc. The women that, even with all this are often the ones up front, giving their time to lift others up. Sara Tulip from BJSS, Anna Sutton from The Data Shed, Victoria Tomlinson from NextUp, Georgia Halston from No Code Lab, Kyra Purvis from Rivery.
What are your Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn social handles and also website links so
Website
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