Celebrating 40 Years in Tech on the Thames

Last week, we celebrated forty years of Intercity. Not in a conference room or over email, but aboard the Silver Sturgeon on the Thames, with the people who've been part of the journey: our customers.

It was a brilliant night. Good company, good conversation, and a chance to pause and look at where we've been, and where we're going.

HOW WE GOT HERE

It started in 1982 with a chance encounter: Alan Jackson, our founder, met Martin Cooper, the inventor of the first handheld mobile phone, and witnessed the second mobile phone call ever made, in the Motorola building in Chicago.

Three years later, Alan put it all on the line and founded Intercity Telecom in Birmingham with six people. Within 18 months, we'd grown to 80. We became Vodafone's day-one partner, the first and longest-standing global independent partner, and built a relationship that's lasted over 30 years.

Fast forward to now, and we've evolved far beyond mobile. In 2023, we became the official IT partner for Edgbaston Cricket Stadium and Warwickshire County Cricket Club. In 2024, we acquired Centrality, a specialist in Microsoft solutions with over 25 years of experience and one of the most accredited Microsoft partners in the UK. That same year, Wired magazine recognised us as a 'trailblazer', a business making waves in the industry.

This year alone, we became the official IT support partner for Birmingham City Football Club, joined the Microsoft Intelligent Security Association (an invite-only network where we work directly with Microsoft's security teams), and won Employer of the Year at the Lloyds British Business Excellence Awards, the largest and most prestigious business award in the UK. And through it all? We've remained fully UK-based, family-owned, and in charge of our own destiny. We hold market-leading SLAs, offer onshore delivery backed by government frameworks, elite Microsoft solutions capabilities, and multi-vendor accreditations, with an industry-leading Net Promoter Score and 24x7x365 support.

THE EVENING

Our CEO Charlie Blakemore opened the night with a look back at our journey. From our beginnings as a family-run telecoms business, to the transformation of the past decade, to where we are now: supporting customers from the device to the cloud and everything in between.
He spoke about our long-standing industry relationships, our growing presence across sport and the public sector, the Centrality acquisition, and becoming one of the very few UK members of MISA.

We then shared a short recap of our time at Microsoft Ignite. AI and security dominated the agenda, from Microsoft’s investment in agentic AI to the scale of their security operation.

Then Joseph Boland-Scott from Microsoft talked about what's happening in the security landscape right now. Digital trust, the pressures leaders are under, and where things are heading. It tied into what our team picked up at Microsoft Ignite a few weeks back, and hearing Joseph connect it to the real challenges people are facing made it feel practical, not theoretical.

He shared the Microsoft Digital Defence Report, an annual publication that analyses global cybersecurity trends and threats based on Microsoft’s security data. It provides insights and recommendations to help organisations, governments, and individuals strengthen their defences against evolving cyber risks. 

Dominic Holland closed the evening with a brilliant set of stand-up and stories about his family’s remarkable journey and had the room roaring with laughter.

But honestly? The best part was the conversations in between. Hearing what you're dealing with, what's keeping you up at night, what you need from us. That's the stuff that matters.

WHAT'S NEXT

Those conversations are shaping how we're thinking about 2025. We're planning our next Customer Focus Group, if you want a seat at the table, there's still time to sign up.

THANK YOU

To every customer who joined us aboard the Silver Sturgeon: thank you. Your presence made the evening what it was.

We’re already planning future events and would love your input. Your feedback will help us shape the format, content and type of experiences you’d like to see going forward.