Hannah Mann and Abigail Stuart, Founding Partners of Day One Strategy, are delighted to have won The International Growth Award as part of The LDC Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders programme for 2026.
Now in its ninth year, the programme was created by leading private equity investor LDC, in partnership with newspaper group The Times, and has celebrated the ambition and achievements of hundreds of exceptional entrepreneurs. The awards were presented last week at a celebratory event at BAFTA 195 Piccadilly in London.
Hannah and Abigail’s pharmaceutical insights consultancy advises big pharma in where to place its bets and has expanded rapidly in the tough US market just two years after launching the business. The judges were impressed by the speed of execution: revenue has since grown 150 per cent in three years to reach £23 million. Their ambitions remain high, with plans to double turnover by 2029 and expand their US business to grow to twice the size of their UK operation.
Hannah Mann, Founding Partner of Day One Strategy, said: “We are delighted to have won this award. We plan for the US to be a main engine of accelerated growth for Day One, given the size of the market and concentration of pharma global brand teams. Despite competition in our space, we’ve addressed an unmet need in today’s market - we use Precision Intelligence and purpose-built AI-enabled technology to cut through noise and surface highly relevant, timely insight.”
Abigail Stuart, Founding Partner, added: “Our US-based operations now comprises a large team of talented and experienced healthcare research consultants and continues to grow, with revenue this year overtaking that in the UK. We’re confident that under Managing Partner, Claire Macchia’s leadership, we’ll achieve our ambitions in the US. We already work with 8 out of the top 10 global pharmaceutical manufacturers, who trust us to give them the insights, speed and clarity they need to support successful commercialization of their brands.”
John Garner, Managing Partner at LDC, commented:“Hannah and Abigail have shown real confidence in taking Day One Strategy into the US only two years after launching their business, and the growth they’ve achieved since speaks for itself. Their success so far and appetite to go even further really stood out to our judges, making them deserving winners of The International Growth Award.”
Day One Strategy has just released their second “AI in pharma State of Play” report, which asks if Insights leaders are seeing real commercial value from AI adoption yet. The report, based on interviews with Insights and Analytics leaders across 10 pharma organisations in Europe and the US, offers a broad perspective of the current challenges and opportunities for AI in insight generation, and is free to download here - https://dayonestrategy.com/resources/ai-in-pharma-state-of-play-report-2026/
Read more about the winners of The LDC Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders for 2026 here: https://bit.ly/4rUzxWp
About Day One Strategy
Day One Strategy is a London-based pharma intelligence and strategy consultancy co-founded by Hannah Mann and Abigail Stuart. Alongside its consultancy services, Day One offers InsightBrain®, a proprietary AI research platform built for pharma decision-making. Day One is a certified Great Place To Work® and winner of the EPHMRA (European Pharma Market Research Association) MR Excellence Award for innovation.
About LDC
LDC is a trusted investment partner for ambitious management teams across the UK. It is part of Lloyds Banking Group and has partnered with hundreds of medium-sized companies across a wide range of sectors, helping them to grow and develop.
