Women in Business - July 2006

Karen Hanton
Founder and Chief Executive, toptable.co.uk
Karen is one of the new breed of female entrepreneurs and is the powerhouse behind toptable, Europe’s largest online restaurant and party booking service. From her initial training and career in HR, she has founded and developed a number of successful ventures over the past 15 years. Karen is widely known within the industry as a pioneer within new media, regularly lecturing on the subject and coaching young entrepreneurs. She has also received significant public recognition including:

- Financial Times/Moet Hennessy Extraordinary Achievers Award
- Named as one of today's top 30 entrepreneurs in New Business Magazine
- Named one of the top 100 most influential people in the first decade of the internet in an NOP/e-consultancy poll .

Louisa Bird
Founder, Women's Marketing Forum

Louisa is the founder of the Women's Marketing Forum. She is a small business marketing coach and certified Master Practitioner in Guerrilla Marketing which is based on a low-cost or non-financial approach to marketing. One of a rare breed who always knew from an early age that she wanted to work for herself, she shares her own passion for self-employment and her entrepreneurial spirit by helping other women business owners attain business success on their own terms.

Claire Burnet
Founder of Chococo, The Purbeck Chocolate Co.

Claire spent 11 years in corporate marketing roles (for Shell, Procter & Gamble and Disney) before deciding, in 2002, to turn a personal love of chocolate into an opportunity to change direction and escape London with her accountant husband Andy & daughter Lily to live in Swanage, Dorset and set up Chococo.

With Claire’s passion for freshness, purity, using only the finest origin chocolate, local Dorset produce and fairly traded ingredients, they are quickly establishing a name for themselves as one of the leading contemporary chocolate makers in the UK. In less than 3 years they have won 12 fine food awards, “Highly Commended” in the Waitrose Small Producers Awards in 2006, 3 packaging design awards, much critical acclaim by both customers & food critics and had another baby! Their chocolates are only available from their tiny factory shop, online and at selected retailers including Harvey Nichols, Selfridges and several boutique delicatessens in London.

Andrew Mallett
Director, Present Action

Andrew is a facilitator, coach and consultant specialising in presentation skills. He set up Present Action in 2001 following a career as a journalist and an actor. Since then he has built up an impressively diverse client list which includes Swiss Re, Shelter, Cushman & Wakefield, Deutsche Bank and Oxford University Press. He’s committed to helping clients reach their potential as communicators and to have the inner confidence to remain themselves when doing business. He devotes half a day per week to volunteer work as a group psychotherapist and at the end of it all he takes out his aggression on the poker table. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts in 2005.

Nick Temple
Network Development, School for Social Entrepreneurs

Nick works to develop the SSE network of schools throughout the UK.  The school trains students to use business skills for grassroots transformation rather than personal profit.  Nick was previously director of the Global Ideas Bank, a people's think-tank of social inventions and good ideas to improve society.

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