How we smashed the glass ceiling, by six of Britain’s most successful female bosses
Follow their inspiring advice – and enter our Mumpreneur Of The Year Awards – and you too could be a millionaire
Most of us have wondered what it would be like to start our own business, to test our entrepreneurial skills and grow our ideas into something significant. there are 5.4 million small and medium- sized businesses in the UK, many run by their founders. But women start just a fifth of them. these six successful businesswomen, and judges for this year’s Daily Mail/NatWest Everywoman Aphrodite Mumpreneur Award, think it’s time that changed. Here they share the lessons they’ve learned on the way to the top in the hope it will inspire you to take the leap and start your own business, too.
GET NANNY TO LOOK AFTER YOU TOO!
ANNA Lee, founded Storm Watches with husband Steve Sun in 1989. It now has a multi-million-pound turnover, 500 outlets, and supplies 45 countries. She has four children, and lives in London. SUCCESS takes teamwork. You’re only ever as good as the group of people behind you, at work and at home, and you have to nurture and appreciate them. Almost a third of our staff have worked with us for more than 15 years, and everyone — even the most junior — is encouraged to share their ideas.
At home it’s the same. I have four children, aged from 12 to 26, and I simply couldn’t have built up my business without the wisdom of the woman we employed to look after them when they were little.
My nanny was an older woman, and was often like a mother to me as well. I couldn’t leave the house without her checking that I had a coat, for example.
If any of us were ill, she’d put us to bed and prepare wonderfully nutritious meals.
Finding someone trustworthy to organise the domestic sphere doesn’t make you less maternal; it just frees up time for you to concentrate on the business.
one of my favourite sayings is: ‘If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.’ When my husband steve and I founded storm in 1989, watches were sold exclusively in jewellers’ shops — but the traditionalists weren’t sure what to do with our funky, quirky designs. so we took them to fashion stores instead.
It was a revolutionary step and early on gave us a great advantage.
You’ve got to be resilient too, and take the knockbacks. I had a tough, unpredictable childhood in North London — my mother suffered bouts of illness and my brother and I were often sent to relatives to be looked after. We even spent a brief time in care.
But that made me cherish all the more the independence provided by paid work.
I got my first ever job at shoe shop saxone and by the time I was 18, I was managing a big womenswear shop in central London. Fashion, retail — and family — have been my passions ever since.
POVERTY IS THE BEST INCENTIVE
RITA SHARMA, 55, is founder and CEO of the £120 million luxury travel empire Bestattravel.co.uk. She lives in London with her husband Rahul, 57, and children Rohan, 25, and Ria 27. MY PARENTS came here from India in the early sixties and as a girl growing up in Essex, I watched them scrape along in low-paid jobs. Much as I loved them, I knew that one day I’d escape that life.
It’s been a struggle. In the seventies, no one told girls they could have a meaningful, lifelong career, still less run their own business.
And Dad was a traditionalist, too: education for girls wasn’t a priority, and there were jobs a good Asian daughter shouldn’t do. I’ve never forgotten his anger when he found I’d gone to a recruitment day for glamorous air hostesses in London.
My mother encouraged me to work hard and get away from home, but most of my persistence and energy came from within. When I set up my travel business 30 years ago, I needed both qualities. often I was the only woman at travel industry gatherings. these days it’s much easier for women to set up alone.
I don’t regret much about my life in business, but I do wish I’d spent a little more time with the kids when they were small.
today I sell luxury holidays costing more than my parents earned in a year. I live a stroll away from my office in Fitzrovia and a world away from the Ilford of my childhood.
the most important advice I give women is that, in the creation of a business, there’s no such thing as a mistake. Every decision you make is a learning experience, and the only real mistake you can make is not to try in the first place.
ASK QUESTIONS, HOWEVER SILLY
AMANDA WAKELEY OBE, 53, is one of the Uk’s top fashion designers, whose luxury brand is a favourite of high-profile women such as HRH the duchess of Cambridge, Angelina Jolie and theresa may. She lives in London with her partner, international PR hugh morrison. Lots of young girls like clothes, but I loved them more than most. this wasn’t just a fondness for dressing up; this was crafting whole new outfits, customising whatever I could lay my hands on, even making my own tie-dye fabrics. As an eight- year- old, I was a mini-designer. It was truly a vocation, truly innate.
that excitement has never left me, and it’s the secret behind my success. I still get the same visceral buzz at seeing a design I’ve sketched become a real dress. the kind of high-profile women I often work with are inspirational. But the woman I love to dress most is my muse of the season — a figment of my imagination. she changes season-to-season, but usually has a long and complex back-story which helps me and my team create a wardrobe for her.
I also keep fit and well. I often spend scorchingly long hours in the office or design studio, so I’m in the gym three or four times a week.
It’s important, too, not to be shy. Don’t be afraid to ask what seems like a stupid question; you’ll look even sillier if you don’t ask and then make a bad mistake. I built my
business by myself, but if I had my time again, I’d make friends with a wise and experienced woman who’s done it all before. EVEN SUPERWOMEN NEED TO SLEEP! Sam Smith, 42, is CEO of FinnCap, one of the UK’s most successful independent brokers with pre-tax profits of £2.8 million. She lives in South London with partner tom, their two-year-old daughter aoife and three step-children. When my daughter was born, I thought I could juggle it all. FinnCap was growing in a shrinking market, advising more than 100 of the UK’s fastest-growing companies and 95 per cent owned by its staff.
I wanted to prove nothing had changed by my being on maternity leave, so I went back to work after five months. But Aoife wasn’t sleeping, and, coupled with working more than 12 hours a day, we were stuck in a cycle of being ill and exhausted.
Sleeping just two or three hours a night, I was so tired I struggled to walk down the stairs.
It lasted about six months before I finally took two weeks off work, sleeping most of the time. As women, we feel an inherent pressure to be superwomen — I had to help run my business during the day, and bake cakes for the kids’ school fair the next day when I got home.
I felt like a failure if I couldn’t do it. But I wasn’t, and I wish I’d realised that sooner.
Attitudes towards working mothers need to change. I felt enormous guilt for returning to work so early. But with the right support network, with your partner and a nanny, you can manage to juggle both a career and raising a child.
Starting a business is terrifying, but more than that, it’s fun, and the most rewarding thing you can do. Try not to focus on the risks, but talk to mentors.
And not trying to be superwoman — getting in the shop-bought cakes for the school fair, and sleeping for at least seven hours a night — makes a world of difference.
MISTAKES? THEY MAKE YOU STRONGER
SharOn hiLditCh mBE, 52, started multi-million-pound skincare company Crystal Clear international in 1995. She lives in Liverpool with husband, Brian, her children, alan, 26, and Elle, 20, and her stepson, henry, eight. AFTer finding it difficult to concentrate at school, always daydreaming about starting my career, I left with no qualifications.
That’s when I started in the beauty industry, and over the years I worked alongside plastic surgeons who were looking at different skin treatments in europe to bring to the UK. I discovered medical microdermabrasion, which involved removing the outer epidermal layer, and I knew this was something the beauty industry could use.
We could make a similar machine, but use crystals to blast and polish the skin much more lightly, resulting in rejuvenated skin, without the need for any invasive procedures.
Crystal Clear was founded when I was in my early 30s, with a £15,000 bank loan. It gained cult status, with fans including Madonna and Cindy Crawford. The treatment, along with our latest innovation, skin rejuvenation therapy COMCIT, is available in 5,000 salons around the world.
I’ve learned to embrace my failings. People don’t like to talk about failure in the UK, but it’s important we’re honest and open about where we’ve fallen short.
When you start your own business, you’re going to make mistakes. But mistakes make us human, and even the big financial ones, no matter how negative the implications at the time, are beneficial in the long- run, providing you learn from them. The sooner you make your mistakes, the better your business!
LOVE PROVING THE DOUBTERS WRONG
JOanna hanSFOrd, 41, runs the multi-million-pound hair colouring business Jo hansford, founded by her mother. She lives in London with her husband who works in recruitment and children, Elsie, ten and tierney, eight. When your mother is your boss you have to work doubly hard to escape charges of nepotism.
As a girl, I watched Mum struggle to set up a business in the early nineties recession, and then devote her life to making it a success.
running your own business doesn’t fit easily into a nine-to-five routine. now that Mum has handed the reins over to me, I’ve learned to enjoy being at its beck and call.
I’ve never had a problem with answering emails at 10pm, or being in the office at weekends.
It’s important, too, that I don’t have any special privileges. We employ 52 people and I’ve never felt I should have greater flexibility than the stylists and colourists raising a family, who still have to be in the salon seeing clients.
The reward lies in expanding the business and giving customers a great service. And in the glamour — when American Vogue calls your mother ‘the best tinter on the planet’, people take notice.
When I was a child, I’d come home from school to find her dyeing Dudley Moore’s roots or advising Vanessa redgrave on a new colour. nowadays we see supermodels and actresses and even royalty.
In the early days, City bankers would ask how we expected to make money out of hairdressing. now I’m extending our hair product range and looking at franchising in the Middle east. It’s wonderful to prove the condescending doubters wrong.