Meet the founder of Ground Truth Intelligence

Stewart Kelly, founder and CEO of Ground Truth Intelligence (GTI) - a technology company offering a new, alternative model for Investigations, Due Diligence, and other Corporate Intelligence requirements.

What’s the most common problem your customers approach you with?

Our customers - banks, law firms and large companies – frequently need support conducting global investigations to detect, mitigate and combat financial crime, fraud and other risks.

What inspired you to launch your business and what is the end goal?

I was inspired by technological innovation in other professional services sectors, and by the early strides made by some innovators in our sector. The end goal is to enable our clients to access ethically sourced intelligence and investigative resources seamlessly - in any relevant jurisdiction in the world.

How do you set yourself apart from other businesses in your industry?

The intelligence and investigations industry is an extremely late bloomer re: technology adoption. We are the first SaaS marketplace for intelligence and investigations services and offer a distinct alternative to the traditional consultancy model in our sector. We also take the polar opposite approach to the ‘smoke and mirrors’ marketing approach of some of the traditional service providers.

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learnt so far as an entrepreneur?

There is a surprisingly huge amount of goodwill from customers and peers towards start-ups that want to improve the sector. We have been very fortunate to benefit from it.

With all the success stories around entrepreneurship and how innovative people have to be to take the leap. How do you think you’ve innovated your sector and why?

We have taken an industry whose business model has barely changed in 50 years and tried to offer something radically different. We have done this because clients have been longing for a new, alternative approach.

Is word of mouth working to your advantage?

Yes, it is. Trust and reliability are highly important in our sector.

We were aware of existing frustrations in the marketplace with legacy models, which gave us the confidence to do what we’re doing. By responding to this demand, we’ve had an inherent tail wind - word of mouth wise.

We’ve been fortunate to benefit from recommendations and referrals. We strive to make sure that our reputation is as positive as it can be. This comes, in our view, from being clear and transparent -- especially in a frequently opaque sector.

What are your top tips for entrepreneurs wanting to get their business out there?

Set extremely specific objectives and surround yourself with people who can help you achieve them.

What plans do you have for Ground Truth Intelligence (GTI) over the next two years?

Build up the user-base on the platform, listen to client comments and ideas, and create additional services in the marketplace to aid clients' workflows.

What’s the single most important decision that you made, that contributed to your business?

Recruiting our leadership / co-founder team.

How do you believe the evolution of tech will affect your industry over the next 10 years?

It will streamline information inputs, enabling consultants and advisors to add more value on top of those inputs, rather than focusing on obtaining the inputs. In short, more efficiency and freeing up talent to do what it does best, rather than be stuck in a process that technology can do much faster.

Any new product launches we should know about?

The Ground Truth Intelligence platform is live for client use from July 2020!