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Deborah Meaden is one of the business tycoons featuring in the famous UK television series Dragon’s Den. This British multimillionairess was born on 11th February 1959. Right after finishing business school she launched her own company exporting glass and ceramics. Later she set up one of the first Stefanel fashion monopolies in UK and thus controlled three successful business ventures in the leisure and retail sector. According to her it was in the Stefanel fashion franchises that she learned mostly about the various business strategies and most of the knowledge that she has about business dealings. Soon after these she became the Managing Director of Weststar Holidays, her own family’s theme park business and bought a major part of the shares during a management buyout and later sold the company for £33 million while still retaining 23% of the stocks. Interestingly she still maintains an active part at Weststar but is mostly busy looking out for interesting investment opportunities. In an interview with Vicky Frost, Deborah Meaden spoke about her not so glamorous childhood. As a child she worked hard and though her parents gave her the opportunities, but never the means. According to Meaden she has taken after her mother who never indulged in self-pity and neither does she. Her motto is to carry on in life and never to regret upon the past, only learn from the mistakes made. She feels that she is responsible for her life and therefore all the actions she takes, she is responsible for that too. She tries to avoid the gender debate, no female issues to deal with and only believes in doing her best. Being a woman does not subdue her in the boardroom filled with men and viewers of Dragon’s Den will agree with that. She looks younger than she actually is (47) and has soft charming features. Though she has a sense of humour but can be blunt sometimes and is absolutely dispassionate while making business decisions. She says that this does not mean that she portrays two different personalities, but rather the fact that on television we see a more concentrated form of her personality. She possesses a natural ability to understand the minute nuances of business investment and that right amount of self-belief is the key to her success. Meaden has turned down many other media offers before accepting the position of a dragon in Dragon’s Den. Inspite of her celebrity status she is still concerned more about good investment and taking beneficial business decisions. Being a straightforward woman she accepts that she takes risks believing that if she loses all her money she will be able to make it back, but by risks she does not mean gambling. Inspite of her successful entrepreneurship ventures, she became popular mainly because of her appearance in the BBC programme-Dragon’s Den, and featured since the third series. She took over the place from Rachel Elnaugh. On 3rd August 2006onwards since Deborah became part of the show, she has made a number of investments on the show, sometimes jointly with other entrepreneurs. Useful links if you are looking to set up your own business and you need an office - Hong Kong office space to let, bangalore office space to let, mumbai office space to let and new delhi office space to let. |