The Body Shop

Anita started The Body Shop on 26th March 1976 simply to create a livelihood for herself and her two daughters, while Gordon was trekking across the Americas. She had no training or experience and her only business acumen was Gordon's advice to take sales of £300 a week. Anita saw entrepreneurship as a means of survival, and firmly believed it nurtured creative thinking. Running her first shop taught her business is not financial science, but all about trading: buying and selling and about creating a product or service so good that people will want to pay for it. Testament to her firmly held business beliefs, over 30 years on The Body Shop is now a multi-local business with over 2,200 stores in 55 different markets. And she always claimed she didn't have clue how she got there!