Confessions of ladies who launch
Caroline Bond launched her conference business because she had had enough of corporate life, wanted to do her own thing and spotted a market opportunity. Eleven years on, having just sold EuroFinance Conferences for ￡12m, she is escaping a second time.
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"I built something that was quite corporate, by default," she says. "I need a lot of creativity, and as the business becomes morecorporate you lose yourcreativity."
Now 42, and with two children under five, Ms Bond also wanted more flexibility. The Economist Group, which has bought the business, is better placed than she is to take it to the next level, she says. "If you are running a business, it is much harder to dip out."
Successful female entrepreneurs such as Ms Bond, who achieved sales of ￡5.6m last year from her business, which organises international events for corporate treasurers, are in great demand as role models because of their scarcity. The UK government is concerned there are so few women entrepreneurs - 3.9 per cent against 8.2 per cent of men - and is launching a national taskforce next month to boost support for female start-ups.
At the same time, many big companies are worried about losing women who leave after rising up the ranks - an issue of sufficient concern that Lehman Brothers, the investment bank, recently put ￡1.75m into a new centre at London Business School to research possible solutions.
FT interviews with women who have quit corporate jobs to set up businesses show that a common theme is the desire for greater control over their lives. Indeed, the report of the Women and Work Commission, launched by Tony Blair this week,recommends that organisations seeking to encourage female entrepreneurs stress "the flexible working possibilities of running your own business".
However, those who have done it warn that flexibility and control rarely mean a reduction in working hours, especially in wealth-creating businesses. "You'll double or triple the hours you put in," says Kavita Oberoi, 35, a self-confessed workaholic and mother of two who set up her IT consultancy in Derby after nine years as a medical representative at Bayer. "Because it's your business, you have to. People rely on you to deliver."
Ms Oberoi cites control, reward and recognition as the big benefits of running her own business. She says she left her company job after being rejected for management on the grounds that she was "too competitive" to lead a team. Initially she went freelance, calculating she could replace her ￡35,000 salary by working just three to four days a month as a training consultant.
In 2001, she set up Oberoi Consulting, realising there was a market opportunity in training doctors to use their clinical systems better to identify patients for screening and preventative treatment. This combined her pharmaceuticals experience with her interest in IT, which began when she learnt basic programming on a BBC computer as a child.
Coming from a family of entrepreneurs, she says "it didn't feel at all risky" to strike out on her own, especially as she required no more start-up finance than the cost of a laptop and car. She persuaded Pfizer to be her first backer. The business has now provided training to more than one in five GP practices, has 16 employees and turnover that she expects to top ￡1m this year.
For those willing to take the risk, corporate experience is a useful safety net. "I did always feel I could go back if I wanted," says Helena Boas, 35-year-old managing director of Bodas, the lingerie retailer, who qualified as a solicitor and worked in fund management at Mercury Asset Management before launching the business five years ago."I had friends who did go back and said it was thebest thing for their careers to have set something up themselves."
She left the City partly to make better use of her creative talents and partly because she could see no one who combined family life and work in the way she hoped to. She thought building a small company would be more flexible and rewarding. But family life is still on hold: "I've been working my socks off for the last five years."
Ms Boas, who co-founded the business with an Italian friend, Donella Tarantelli, found her network invaluable when raising ￡2.1m in three tranches for start-up and expansion. Friends and family provided funding, but substantial backing also came from Pi Capital, the private equity investment firm.
"I went everywhere - people in the City, government leaflets, the Prince's Trust and the private investor network," she says. "You have to be very persistent and call everyone you can. There is nobody I called up who said: 'No, I really don't have time to talk to you.' "
She sought advice from big-name retailers such as Johnny Boden, Stuart Rose and Nick Hollingworth. Mentors include Brent Hoberman of Lastminute.com and Thomas Vaughan, the 1960s co-founder of Juliana's discos, who was Bodas's first external investor and chairs the board.
The business has changed course from focusing on mail order and online sales and then Bodas shops to its current international expansion through department stores such as Saks, Barneys and Harvey Nichols, independent retailers, and the internet. She expects sales to reach at least ￡1.1m this year.
Pi's investors hold 40 per cent of the equity, with management owning 25 per cent and friends and family 35 per cent. Do external shareholders help or hinder decision-making? "Sometimes they provide a very good perspective and very good advice, even though it may not necessarily be what you want to hear at the time," says Ms Boas. "Other times, it can take more time to get decisions."
Fortunately, they were supportive when the business was hit by last year's "bra wars" - the European dispute over Chinese textile imports that led to the impounding of 77m trousers, pullovers and bras. Eighty per cent of Bodas's collection was held in Manchester for 10 weeks. "We were just about as far to the edge as I would want to be," she says.
Looking to the future, Ms Boas says she might go into private equity or return to the corporate world with a big retailer if the right opportunity came up. "The secret is to leave when you are still having a good time."
As Ms Bond heads for the exit, she reflects on what she has learnt. One lesson is to formalise the due worth of all partners' shareholdings at the start.
Having worked for companies such as Euromoney, she won backing for her business idea from a group of consultants in cash and treasury management. The five men contributed office space, advice and contacts. They ended up with 65 per cent of the equity. "The business could have been established without them but maybe not as quickly," she says.
She employed a largely female staff, drawing on their strong listening skills as researchers for the conference agendas. Many were attracted by her offer of flexible working arrangements and above-market salaries. But the predominance of 30-something women suddenly became a risk when all her senior staff became pregnant in a single year. "Now we are redressing the balance by getting more men who are entering the profession," she says.
In the middle of her handover, Ms Bond offers a frank view of the perpetual tension between business ownership and personal life. "Because I wanted flexibility, I was the company's glass ceiling," she says. "That's not what I wanted for the business, or for the bright people in it."
女性创业家的“自白”
卡
罗琳?邦德(Caroline Bond)厌倦了在公司打工的日子，希望干点儿自己的事，捉到一个市场机会后，便创办起会议业务。11年过去了，她刚以1200万英镑卖掉了自己的欧洲财务会议公司(EuroFinance Conferences)。现在，她准备再次抽身而退。
“我的事业几乎越来越企业化。”她表示：“我需要不断创造，但随着公司越来越企业化，你就会丧失创造力。”
卡罗琳现年42岁，有两个不足5岁的孩子，她还需要更大的灵活度。她表示，收购该公司的英国经济学人集团 (The Economist Group)，比她本人更适于将企业带入下一阶段。“如果你在经营一家企业，想要抽身就困难得多了。”
像卡罗琳这样的成功女性创业者实在少见，因此社会非常需要这样的女性做榜样。卡罗琳的公司专门为企业财务主管们组织国际会议，去年营业额为560万英镑。英国政府对女性创业者数量太少感到忧虑，定于下月成立一个全国工作组 ，加大对女性创业的支持力度。英国女性创业者仅占人口的3.9%，而男性创业者的比例为8.2 %
与此同时，一些女性晋升后离职现象，引起很多大公司的担忧。这个问题令投资银行雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)感到相当担心。为此，该行最近向伦敦商学院 (London Business School) 一个新中心提供了175万英镑，用以研究可能的解决方案。
《金融时报》对一些离职创业的女性进行了采访，发现她们都谈到了一个共同的话题：渴望对自己的生活拥有更大控制权。事实上，本周有关英国首相托尼?布莱尔(Tony Blair)发起的女性工作委员会(Women and Work Commission)的报道建议，有意鼓励女性创业者的机构，应该强调“自创企业中可能的工作灵活性”。
创业会增大工作强度
然而，那些过来人则警告称，灵活度和控制权很少意味着减少工作时间，创业尤其如此。“你投入的时间将是两倍或三倍，”35 岁的卡维塔?欧伯罗艾（Kavita Oberoi）表示，“因为那是你自己的生意，你只能这样做。大家都靠你把事情做成功。”卡维塔是两个孩子的母亲，她承认自己是个工作狂。在拜耳(Bayer)当了9年的医药代表之后，她在德比建立了自己的IT咨询公司。
卡维塔认为，控制权、回报和得到认可是自己经营企业的几大好处。她表示，由于自己“太争强好胜”，不适合领导一个团队，因此没能进入管理层，此后，她辞去了在公司的工作。起初，她成了自由职业者，盘算着做一名每月只工作 3至4天的培训顾问，也能赚来与原来同样的薪水――3.5万英镑。
2001年，卡维塔以自己的名字成立了一家咨询公司。当时，她发现了一个市场机遇，即对医生进行培训，使其更好地利用临床系统，确定那些需要拍片和进行预防性治疗的患者。这把她医药领域的工作经验和IT方面的兴趣结合了起来。她对IT的兴趣始自于小时候，她还是个孩子时，就曾在电脑上做基本的编程。
卡维塔来自一个创业者之家，她表示对自己创办公司“没感到有任何风险”，特别是当她需要的启动资本不过是一台笔记本电脑和一辆车时，更是如此。她说服辉瑞公司 (Pfizer)，成为第一家支持她的公司。她的公司目前为五分之一以上的全科医学(GP)实践提供培训，公司拥有16名员工，她预计今年营业额将超过100万英镑。
对于那些愿意冒险的人而言，公司从业经历是个有用的安全网。“我确实经常想，如果我愿意的话，我就能过去，”海伦娜?博厄斯(Helena Boas)表示，“我有些朋友的确回到公司去了，他们说自己创业，对事业而言是件再好不过的事了。”
敢闯才能成功
海伦娜今年35岁，是女士内衣零售商Bodas公司的董事总经理，她拥有律师资格，她于5年前自己出来创业，此前在水星资产管理公司(Mercury Asset Management)资金管理部门供职。
她离开了伦敦金融城，部分原因是想更好地利用自己的创造才能，还有部分原因在于，她发现尚且无人能以她希望的那种方式，将家庭生活与工作结合起来。她认为，建立一家小公司会更具灵活性、更值得。不过，家庭生活仍然不能放弃： “在过去5年里，我一直拼命工作。”
海伦娜分3个阶段为公司启动和扩充筹资210万英镑时，发现自己的人际网真是无价之宝。海伦娜是和一位意大利的朋友多内拉?塔兰泰利 (Donella Tarantelli)一起创建这家公司的。朋友和家人提供了部分资金，不过，具有实质性的支持也来自于私人股本投资公司Pi Capital。
“我哪儿都去――找在金融城的人、读政府传单、去王子信托基金 (Prince’s Trust)，还有私人投资者网络，” 海伦娜说，“你不得不百折不挠，尽可能给每个人打电话。在我打电话的对象里，没有人说过：‘不行，我实在没时间跟你说话。’”
她从约翰尼?博登(Johnny Boden)、斯图尔特?罗斯(Stuart Rose)和尼克?霍林沃斯(Nick Hollingworth)等知名零售商那里寻求建议。这些贤明的顾问中还包括英国在线零售公司Lastminute.com的布伦特?赫贝曼 (Brent Hoberman)和托马斯?沃恩(Thomas Vaughan)。后者是20世纪60年代Juliana’s discos的合伙创建者，是Bodas首位外部投资者及董事会主席。
公司几度改变路线，从集中于邮购到在线销售、然后是Bodas 商店，一直到其目前通过百货公司、独立零售商和互联网进行国际扩张。百货公司中包括萨克斯(Saks)、精品百货Barneys和夏菲尼高高档百货(Harvey Nichols)等。她预计今年销售额至少能达到110万英镑。
Pi的投资者持有40%股份，管理层拥有25%，朋友和家人拥有35%。外部股东是有助还是有碍于制定决策呢？“有时候他们提供很棒的看法、很妙的建议，尽管那不一定是你当时想听的，”海伦娜说，“又有时候，做决策需要花费更多时间。”
幸运的是，公司业务遭受去年 “文胸大战”冲击之时，股东们都没有拆台。欧盟在中国纺织品进口问题上纠纷，导致7700 万件长裤、毛衣及文胸被扣。Bodas公司 80% 的产品在曼彻斯特滞留了10周。她表示，当时的处境险极了。
为未来做计划
谈及未来的打算时，海伦娜表示，如果时机合适，她可能会进入私人股本公司或重返拥有大型零售商的企业集团。“做事的秘诀是，在顺境时退出。”
卡罗琳在准备退出之际，反思自己获得的教训。其中一条是，从一开始就应确定所有合伙人股份的适当价值。
由于曾在欧万利(Euromoney)等公司供职，卡罗琳的商业想法赢得了银行及财政管理领域一群咨询顾问们的支持。其中5人提供办公场地、建议及客户。他们最后获得65%的股份。她表示：“本来没有他们也可以建立业务，但可能不会那么快。”
卡罗琳雇用的职员多为女性，发挥她们善于聆听的能力，为会议安排做调研。卡罗琳提供灵活的工作时间和高于市场水平的薪酬，因此许多人慕名而来。但当她所有高级职员在一年之内全部怀孕时，那种由30多岁女性构成的优势突然变成一种风险。卡罗琳表示：“现在我们正通过招募更多有志于从事该职业的男性，来恢复（男女比例的）平衡。”
目前，卡罗琳正在交接工作。她直言不讳，这样阐明拥有企业与私人生活之间永远存在利害关系。她说：“我想要灵活性，又是这家公司的顶尖人物，这对企业不利，对优秀的人才也不利。”
