Features

Power Suit - The UK's top female entrepreneurs

It’s a fitting time to celebrate female entrepreneurship as government statistics show that more women than ever before are opting to start their own business. In 2003 there were dramatic signs of an increase of female entrepreneurs. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor showed that ‘four in every 100 women aged 18 or above were active entrepreneurs.” Further to this, the Princes Trust released a report that stated 38% of start up owners contacting the trust for advice were in fact women, and similar reports followed from Shell Live Wire. As Management Today unveil their list of 2009 young businesswomen to watch. We at Start Your Business take a look at a handful of women in the UK that represent our very own hotlist of female business achievers with some surprise entries this year.

Tamara Mellon
42, Founder of Jimmy Choo, Retail
Founder and President of Jimmy Choo, a complete luxury lifestyle accessory brand with women’s shoes, handbags, small leather goods, sunglasses and eyewear. Tamara oversees the creative direction of the brand and her vision has always been to fully accessorise and capture the hearts of women around the world by building a full luxury house with shoes at the core.

Jimmy Choo was launched in 1996 when Tamara Mellon, Accessories Editor at British Vogue realised the potential demand for stylish but wearable shoes and approached Mr Jimmy Choo, the couture shoemaker based in the East End of London, recognized for his excellent craftsmanship. Tamara partnered with Mr Jimmy Choo to start the ready-to-wear shoe company, sourcing factories and production in Italy and opened the first standalone boutique on Motcomb Street, London along with a strong wholesale business. In 1998, Jimmy Choo opened its first boutique in New York, followed by Los Angeles in 1999. Sparking an immediate success amongst young Hollywood, Jimmy Choo became synonymous with the “red carpet” and was hailed the lucky charm for Oscar winners such as Cate Blanchett, Halle Berry, Hilary Swank and many other Hollywood actresses.

In April 2001, Mr Jimmy Choo’s equity share of the business was purchased by Equinox Luxury Holdings Ltd. During this period, Jimmy Choo saw its first significant expansion and the introduction of handbags. In November 2004, Lion Capital acquired a majority shareholding, valuing the Company at £101 million. In February 2007, a majority shareholding of Jimmy Choo was acquired by TowerBrook Capital Partners, the international private equity firm, a deal which valued the Company at £185 million.

Jimmy Choo has been awarded the 2008 ACE Designer Brand of the Year award, 2008 British Designer Brand of the Year Award from the British Fashion Council, the 2008 ‘Footwear News’ Brand of the Year Award, and the 2009 Nordstrom ‘Partners In Excellence’ award.

Kate Moss,
35, Kate Moss at Topshop, Retail
On 1 May 2007, Moss began to design exclusively for the Topshop chain creating a brand that would feature across 225 UK stores. The collection of around fifty designs per season includes clothes, bags, shoes and belts where prices range from £12 for a vest top to £150 for a cropped leather jacket. Clothes in the collection include skinny jeans, one-shoulder mini dresses and T-shirts with the letter K woven in to the design.

However, purchases were limited to five items per shopper to prevent the clothes appearing on eBay, and customers were only allowed to try on eight garments in the shop due to escalating public demand. The Topshop range was later released in the United States at the New York chain store Barneys, where 26 designs from the range were on sale for higher prices. Moss also released an underwear collection for Topshop soon after, proving she isn’t just a pretty face.

Liz Jackson
31, Great Guns Marketing
Liz Jackson launched her company over six years ago in the UK with the help of the Prince of Wales Trust, where she received £1000 grant. Today, Great Guns Marketing is turning over more than £2 million and growing at a rate of forty percent per annum. Great Guns Marketing is an outbound business-to-business appointment making agency. The year Liz started her business, she lost her sight completely. However, this didn’t stop her from pursuing her dreams. With no advanced educational background (Liz came out of school with 3 O’levels and didn’t bother pursuing her educational career any further), she truly is an inspirational figure. Great Guns Marketing won the Customer Focused Award (part of the National Business Awards – sponsored by Orange) as being the company that best demonstrated its ability to place the customer at the heart of its business and deploy and manage its resources to most effectively meet the needs of its customer base. These prestigious awards were described by Gordon Brown as the Business Oscars.

Liz won the Women Mean Business Award that was sponsored by T-Mobile and the Sunday Express – Britain’s biggest award dedicated to women running their own businesses. The award is designed to recognize the growing importance of independent businesswoman to both the economy and the community. Liz took away with her a cheque of £10,000 and £3,000 worth of telecommunications equipment from T-Mobile.

Linda Bennett
43, LK Bennett, Retail
Linda Bennett reckons she inherited the financial sense of her father, a London retail entrepreneur, and the creativity of her mother, an Icelandic sculptor. The founder of the LK Bennett fashion group grew up in the North London suburbs, and worked on the shop floor of Whistles and Joseph before spotting a gap in the market for an outlet selling well-made shoes for an affluent public. She opened her first shop in Wimbledon and now has stores on Brook Street and King's Road, and concessions in Harvey Nichols, Selfridges and Fenwick. She has a store in Paris, and plans more in New York, LA and Japan. LK Bennett made a £1 million profit on £27 million sales in 2002-03. Bennett owns it all, and she appointed BDO Stoy Hayward in November 2004 to find strategic investors. She wants to concentrate on design, handing over the daily management to someone else. External investment would also enable Bennett to expand the business abroad.

Lisa Myers
31, VERVE SEARCH, IT
Norwegian-born Myers is an expert in search marketing and search-engine optimisation. She founded consultancy Verve Search in February this year. She was head of search at Base One, during which time she won the award for the under-30 category of the BlackBerry Women & Technology Awards in 2008. She is now a regular speaker at industry events and was listed on Management Today’s ‘Top 35 Women under 35.’

Azita Qadri
35, EAT YOUR CAKE, Recruitment
Cambridge graduate Qadri is the woman behind Eat Your Cake, which helps start-ups recruit high-calibre professionals who need flexible working hours. Qadri brings her experience from eBay, where she got retailers to sell excess stock on site. She plans to take Eat Your Cake
to the rest of Europe
in 2010.

Holly Tucker
32, NOT ON THE HIGH STREET.com
Gifts & Online Retail
Co-founder of notonthehighstreet.com, Tucker and business partner Sophie Cornish have been selling luxury wares from small businesses across the UK since 2006. The business is on track to turn over £6m this year. Before setting up the e-tailer, Tucker was in sales at Publicis and Condé Nast.

Sophie Howarth
33, SCHOOL OF LIFE, Education
Before becoming founding director of the School of Life
in 2008 – a philosophy school and shop, whose teachers include Alain de Botton and Martin Parr.

Howarth worked as head of education at Iniva and was curator of public programmes at Tate Modern. She writes about photography.

Claire Mason
34, MAN BITES DOG, Public Relations
The Oxford graduate set up PR agency Man Bites Dog four years ago and has won several awards since, including PR Week’s New Consultancy of the Year 2007/8. A specialist company targeting professional services firms, the agency boasts profit margins four times the industry average and is expanding fast.

Michelle Mone
37, Founder of Ultimo, Retail
Creator of the Ultimo Bra, Young Business Achiever of the World. Ambition, hard work, determination and self-belief are the driving forces behind her incredible success story. Michelle Mone, is the founder and co-owner of MJM International and the creator of Ultimo, the UK’s leading designer lingerie brand. Listed as one of the top 3 female entrepreneurs in the UK, Michelle has built a hugely successful career on an incredibly simple concept: giving today’s women what they want. Since launching the business Michelle has established herself as one of Scotland’s most successful exports; in 2000 Ultimo shot to prominence when Hollywood actress Julia Roberts wore an Ultimo gel-bra for her role in US blockbuster Erin Brockovich.

Later that year Michelle also won the coveted ‘World Young Business Achiever Award’ at the Epcot Centre, Florida, and scooped ‘Business Woman of the Year’ at the Corporate Elite Awards in London. In 2001 Prince Charles invited Michelle to join the Board of Directors for The Princes Scottish Youth Business Trust and more recently his Board of Main Council, confirming her status as one of the UK’s leading female entrepreneurs. Michelle also won ‘Best Newcomer’ at the British Apparel Export Awards, presented by HRH the Princess Royal, adding to her long list of awards, accolades and recognitions.

Over the years the business has gone from strength-to-strength, developing beyond the original umbrella of Ultimo to encompass Ultimo D-G Cup, Ultimo Black Label, Ultimo Shapewear, Ultimo Swimwear and partner lines including ‘Adore Moi’ for Debenhams and ‘Michelle for George’ for Asda, named after Michelle herself. As well as designing fashion lingerie, Ultimo boasts eight worldwide patented inventions, including Ultimo ‘Miracle’ backless body. In addition to its jointly owned brands, MJM International Ltd currently supply Debenhams, Asda, Next, Figleaves and Asos.com, along with a number of independent lingerie stores throughout Europe.

Since launching almost 12 years ago, Ultimo has established a huge profile and loyal customer base within the UK and contracts with a string of stunning, high-profile models and celebrities, including Penny Lancaster, Rachel Hunter, Helena Christensen, Sarah Harding and currently the face and body of Ultimo, Spice Girl Mel B.

Priya Lakhani
28, Masala Masala, Food & Catering
Ex-barrister Lakhani quit in 2008 to start Masala Masala, an authentic Indian sauce company, and was soon voted Daily Mail Enterprising Young Brit. Her sauces are sold by Waitrose, Harrods and Harvey Nichols. She set up the Masala Masala Project – for every pot sold, a homeless person in India is fed a meal.

Elspeth Finch
33, INTELLIGENT SPACE, Transport
A transport planner by background, Finch co-founded pedestrian modelling consultancy Intelligent Space in 2000 at the age of 24. The firm was bought by Atkins – the UK’s largest engineering consultancy, with a £1.3bn turnover – in 2007. She is now director for highways and transportation at the group.

Savannah Miller
30, co-founder, Twenty8Twelve, Retail
As founder and creative director of designer label Twenty8Twelve, Miller has hit the fashion spot. The Central St Martins’ graduate previously worked for Anya Hindmarch, Betty Jackson, Matthew Williamson and Alexander McQueen. Miller set up the business with her sister Sienna in 2006. It put on its first catwalk show this year.

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