I’m not a ‘woman in business’, says Dragon Deborah Meaden
DEBORAH MEADEN, the serial entrepreneur and star of the TV show Dragons’ Den, has said she does not consider herself to be a “woman in business” because it would prompt others to take her gender into account.
Ms Meaden, 59, launched her first business straight after college and said she believes young women are now in a much stronger position than she was at that time.
She said: “I think most of the younger women I meet are way ahead of where we were in my time. I actually think it’s reached tipping point.”
She added that if she were to call herself a businesswoman, “whoever I’m talking to is going to take my gender into account”.
Correcting such suppositions, she said: “I’m in business – full stop.
“And I think that’s the strongest message you can send. Just do your thing. Just be good at it.
“There are prejudices against all sorts, all around us, all of the time. You give power to prejudice by recognising it. If you ignore it, it’s an amazingly powerful thing.” Ms Meaden has appeared on
Dragons’ Den since the third series in 2006 and invested in numerous businesses, but she said it was her appearance on Strictly Come Dancing that changed the way people saw her.
She said: “People used to be quite scared of me. I used to see out of the corner of my eye, ‘There’s that woman off Dragons’
Den’. But because of Strictly, they got that there was more to me than just the scary woman in the chair. More people approach me now, which I like. I would rather people said hello and talked to me than did that in the background.” Dragons’ Den returns to BBC Two on Sunday.