Rich List 2017
PLAYING FOR HIGH
H
ere are some fi gures that may amuse
women across the country. For years,
husband and wife Nick Wheeler and
Chrissie Rucker have worked away
energ etically at their two separate
businesses. Wheeler owns the upmarket
Charles Tyrwhitt shirtmaker chain.
Rucker founded the homeware retailer
The White Company back in 1994 , giving
her husband 1% of her business as a
wedding present. For years Charles Tyrwhitt’s
profi ts have far exceeded those of The White
Company. But the latest accounts for the shirt
company revealed profi ts of £17 .094 m , compared
with £17 .241 m for Rucker’s operation — £147,000
more than her husband’s venture.
Rucker is just one of a growing number of female
entrepreneurs who have marched into or up the 2017
Sunday Times Rich List. This year a record 130
women are named in the main list of Britain’s richest
1,000 individuals and families. Their number
includes Denise Coates , who founded Bet365 from
a mobile offi ce in a Stoke-on-Trent car park. The
online gambling giant is now worth at least £4.5bn
and Coates received £117.5m last year, including
a £54m salary , thought to be the largest wage paid to
a woman in British corporate history.
The former fashion journalist Dame Natalie
Massenet set up the Net- a- porter online retailer from
her Chelsea fl at. She was heavily pregnant with her
fi rst child at the time and used her bath as the stock
cupboard. Her net worth stands at £135m.
This year’s new entries include Michel e Harriman-
Smith , whose Childrensalon sells designer clothes
for youngsters, and Sarah Bennett , who set up the
ethical jewellery business Gemporia with her
husband, Steve.
Times have certainly changed. Leaf through the
yellowing pages of the 1994 Rich List and you will see
mugshot after mugshot of middle-aged or elderly
men. There were only 19 women in the entire
publication, most of them there by dint of either their
husband’s career or a family inheritance. Ann Gloag ,
the Stagecoach entrepreneur, and Anita Roddick of
the Body Shop were two of very few exceptions.
Wind forward 23 years and there are striking
stories of entrepreneurial wizardry to be found
throughout this year’s Rich List. But many of the
most inspiring tales are about women who creat ed
and expanded their businesses when the odds were
heavily stacked against them. Th ey come from a timeFemale entrepreneurs are making their mark on the
Rich List as never before. Their achievements should
help to inspire the next generation, reports Robert Watts
1
Charlene de
Carvalho-Heineken
Brewing
£9.3bn (22)2
Denise Coates
Bet 365
£5bn (24)3
Lady Green
Topshop
£2.787bn (32)4
Dame Mary Perkins
Specsavers
£1.6bn (41)5
Christina Ong
Mulberry
£1.296bn (45)6
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw
Biocon
£1.15bn (4 8)7
Ann Gloag
Stagecoach
£920m (54)8
Mireille Gillings
Biotechnology
£900m (54)9
Yelena Baturina
Construction
£822m (56)10
Nichola Pease
Finance
£775m (57)FEMALE
ENTREPRENEURS20
when female role models in business were rare and
both discrimination and male arrogance more overt.
Back in 1971, Cathy Paver was turned down for a
£200 loan to start a shoe business. So she tried again,
this time claiming the money was to buy a sofa. Her
bank manager gladly agreed and fortunately never
asked for proof of purchase. When Paver died at the
age of 88 earlier this year, the Yorkshire-based
business she created was selling 4m shoes a week
around the world. But for her death, Paver would
have been included in this year’s Rich List.
Then there is Jacqueline Gold , who has
transformed Ann Summers into a more successful,
female-friendly business, despite opposition from
one of the (male) directors. “This isn’t going to work,”
he apparently fumed. “Women aren’t interested in
sex.” Her family’s wealth is now valued at £460m.
Dame Margaret Barbour was working as
a teacher when her husband, whose family owned the
fashion label famous for its outdoor jackets, died at
the age of just 29. She picked up the reins of the
business and today it is a highly successful, diverse
fashion label with annual sales of more than £200m.
In the mid-1990s, Penny Streeter found herself
divorced, living in a homeless hostel with her three
children and running a mobile disco to make ends
meet. “I said to myself, ‘We’re not going to live like
this. I’m going to get myself out of this rut,’ ” she said.
Today A24 Group, the recruitment business Streeter
built, is worth at least £150m.
She is one of many women who feature on The
Sunday Times Rich List who began their businesses
in the 1980s or 1990s at a time when bankers and
venture capitalists were beginning to appear less
fl abbergasted when confronted with an application
for fi nance from a woman.
“Margaret Thatcher was a key fi gure,” says Emma
Jones , a government trade advis er who founded the
small business group Enterprise Nation after selling
her own company. “Having a wom an holding the
levers of power helped to break down stereotypes
and inspire women in business.”52 • thesundaytimes.co.uk/richlistMany of the most inspiring
tales are of women who creat ed
businesses when the odds
were stacked against them