The Next Chapter The strategic shifts defining 2026

As the calendar flips toward 2026, a change is occurring in boardrooms and co-working spaces across the UK. Entrepreneurs are rethinking not just growth trajectories and profit margins, but how they lead, how they create, and what it means to build a business that lasts. For some, this is about recalibrating personal values within a corporate context. For others, it is a technical transformation or a recalibration of financial priorities. What unites them all is a recognition that the old formulas - rapid scaling, relentless expansion, and traditional hierarchies - no longer suffice in a world shaped by technological disruption, shifting consumer expectations, and the psychological toll of hyper-growth.

For Méline Liu, founder of The HumanWare Project, the most powerful shift begins internally, within herself and her team. "Over the past year of building the business, I've learned that the best ideas don't come from running faster, they come from finding balance," she says. In a sector often dominated by constant deadlines and the pressure to deliver, Liu has found a surprising catalyst for innovation in a practice borrowed from wellness: breathwork. "Breathwork has been one of the most powerful shifts in my personal practice, and I've enjoyed introducing it into my team meetings. Sometimes it's five minutes between meetings, sometimes just a minute before we start. It's simple, but it changes the energy completely. We arrive more present. We listen more deeply."

What Liu describes may seem minor, even ritualistic, but it reflects a deeper trend among entrepreneurs who recognise that wellbeing is no longer a fringe concern. It is a driver of productivity, creativity, and engagement. For The HumanWare Project, 2026 will be a year of experimenting with ways to embed wellbeing into the very structure of collaboration: not as a checkbox, but as a strategic design for how the business operates. "It's a small ritual, but it's also just the start. In 2026, we're exploring more ways to weave wellbeing into how we collaborate and create," Liu adds.

Love, it seems, can be just as revolutionary as breathwork. John Vincent, co-founder of LEON Restaurants, recently reacquired the business he helped build, and his focus for 2026 is startling in its simplicity and ambition: love. "I have just bought Leon back, and the biggest shift I'm making in 2026 is to bring back love into everything we do at Leon. If people love what they do and love coming to work, and if the food is sincerely made with love then guests feel it." For Vincent, love is both an operational principle and a cultural strategy. He recalls a conversation with an elite sports team that had won the World Cup: their victory, they concluded, came not from superior training or tactics alone, but because everyone in the team genuinely loved and supported each other. "That is my hope – and my biggest shift – for my team at Leon. I hope it will inspire other entrepreneurs too, because Private Equity and big corporates do not operate like this. And we are all seeing the consequences."

The contrast between Liu's focus on individual and team energy, and Voncent's emphasis on relational culture, underscores a broader rethinking among founders: human factors - empathy, care, presence - can be as determinative of business outcomes as finance or technology. But the next wave of shifts leans heavily on technology itself, and in some sectors, the move is as dramatic as the change in mindset.

Iain McCallister, CEO of MAN Commercial Protection in the West Midlands, is steering his company from a traditional security-guarding business toward a technology-first model. "In 2026, MAN Commercial Protection is moving from being primarily a security guarding and event security business, into providing security systems and cutting-edge technology solutions – all designed to further enhance our customer offering," he says. The transition has already begun with CCTV monitoring, alarm response, key-holding, and concierge services. But the coming year will see the acceleration of cloud-based monitoring, AI-driven video analytics, drones, and remote operations.

McCallister is also leveraging technology to scale through strategic acquisition. "Our goal is to acquire at least one business, which either has revenues of £5m to £30m or brings a specialist security offering to the mix that we can integrate into our platform. Throughout this shift, the business remains committed to our core values of 'people first' and 'service excellence.'" It is a delicate balancing act: innovating aggressively without losing the culture and trust that underpin the company's reputation. Yet it is precisely this type of dual focus - on both human and technological capital - that seems to define successful entrepreneurial pivots in 2026.

In a different sector, Claire Crompton, co-founder and commercial director of TAL Agency, is turning the power of artificial intelligence into a performance lever. "In the new year, the biggest move we're making is to shift from a traditional service delivery to a more performance-led, AI-enhanced model of digital marketing," she explains. TAL Agency is focusing on automation, predictive analytics, and smarter use of first-party data to deliver measurable growth faster. The aim is not merely to run campaigns, but to partner strategically with clients, creating digital ecosystems that continually improve, adapt, and scale alongside market change.

Crompton's strategy illustrates another key trend: AI is no longer an experimental tool or a marketing buzzword. For many entrepreneurs, it is becoming a structural element of business strategy, informing not only operations but client engagement, long-term planning, and competitive differentiation. As she puts it, "We're not just running campaigns, but partnering with our clients more strategically -helping them build better digital ecosystems that continually improve, adapt, and scale alongside market change."

Finally, some leaders are turning inward, reevaluating financial models and sustainability. Harriet Noy, founder and CEO of Hazaar, is prioritizing profitability in a landscape that has often celebrated fundraising over self-sufficiency. "One of the biggest shifts we're making to our 2026 strategy is prioritising a clear and sustainable route to profitability. We're aiming to reach breakeven within 12 months," she explains. For Noy, the lesson of the last decade has been clear: growth without financial control can compromise vision, flexibility, and autonomy. "When I first started the business, the emphasis across the industry was on fundraising and growth at all costs – but the landscape has changed. As a result, I think being able to stand on our own two feet gives us far greater control over how we run the business, so our focus now is on building a model that gets us to profitability and keeps us there."

What unites these five approaches - wellbeing, love, technological innovation, AI, and financial discipline - is a recalibration of what success looks like in 2026. Entrepreneurs are increasingly conscious that the old metrics of valuation, speed, and scale are insufficient to capture the complexity of modern business challenges. Mental health, team culture, adaptability, data-driven insights, and sustainable financial structures are no longer secondary concerns - they are strategic imperatives.

There is also an underlying acknowledgement that strategy is inseparable from values. For Liu, the focus on mindfulness is inseparable from the company's collaborative DNA. For Vincent, love informs operational decisions, recruitment, and product quality. For McCallister, technology must be deployed in a way that respects and amplifies human service. Crompton's AI-driven approach is paired with deeper client relationships, and Noy's financial prudence strengthens the company's resilience and autonomy.

These shifts are not without challenges. Balancing human factors with technological innovation, or reconciling profitability with long-term vision, requires nuanced leadership and constant iteration. Yet, if 2026 is a year of experimentation, it is also one of intentionality: entrepreneurs are testing the limits of what is possible while rooting decisions in principles that will sustain their companies beyond the next quarterly report.

Ultimately, the stories of Liu, Vincent, McCallister, Crompton, and Noy show that the future of entrepreneurship is as much about the 'how' as the 'what.' Whether through mindful pauses, the cultivation of love in the workplace, AI-driven ecosystems, technology-led expansion, or sustainable profitability, these leaders are redefining the contours of business strategy. Their approaches suggest a wider lesson for the entrepreneurial world: that the biggest shifts often emerge not from chasing speed or scale, but from consciously aligning purpose, culture, and innovation.

As 2026 dawns, it is clear that the year will not just be about what companies do, but how they do it. In weaving together human care, technological intelligence, and financial prudence, these entrepreneurs offer a blueprint for a business landscape that is resilient, responsive, and rooted in values -a landscape in which growth and humanity are no longer at odds, but mutually reinforcing.