Karen Hanton

Karen Hanton is a Scottish entrepreneur. She is known for founding JustAddRed, Toptable.com, and Mortimer & Spinks. She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2010.

Early life

Karen Hanton

Born just outside Aberdeen, Scotland on a small croft the youngest of 3 with 2 older brothers. Educated at the local Bridge of Don Academy loving all sport and frequently captained the hockey and netball teams. Also had a love of art and design. Was a school prefect in secondary years. Tended to challenge the system somewhat and took the first opportunity to leave school spending the summer holidays of 1974 in London and didn’t return to Aberdeen choosing to make a life in the South. Remains extremely patriotic and proud of her Scottish roots.

Career

2015

Founded JustAddRed an East London Incubator. Projects include: PetsPyjamas.com number 1 pet lifestyle destination website PositiveLuxury.com

Also works closely with other entrepreneurs and investments include:

thecakeapp.com - Mobile payments and restaurant booking

2000 - 2010

Founded toptable.com Europe’s largest online restaurant booking service listing over 8000 restaurants in 14 countries sold to NASDAQ listed Opentable.com in 2010 for $55M.^[1] Sir Alex Ferguson and Gary Rhodes were shareholders in the company and Karen Hanton was the biggest single shareholder and CEO.

She was awarded an MBE in 2010 for services to the restaurant industry.

1996 - 1999

Self Employed - Property Development

1990 - 1996

Founded Mortimer & Spinks an IT recruitment consulting firm sold in 1996 to Harvey Nash listed on the FTSE 250.

1984 - 1989

Self Employed - Property Design and Development.

Both residential and commercial developments in Central London frequently buying unmodernised and designing/developing/re-selling or retaining to let.

1974 - 1984

The Allders Group - Large, privately owned group (The Lyons Family) including 12 department stores and duty-free shops at airports. Recruited as a trainee in the HR department at William Whiteley’s of Bayswater and subsequently joining and completing a general management training course whilst continuing to focus on HR. Various positions within the group (all HR and Training) culminating in being appointed Head of HR and Training at Allders of Croydon (c2000 staff) at the relatively young age of 25. Left in 1984 to pursue self-employment.

Awards

Hanton has received significant public recognition including:^[2]^[3]

2015 - Named in the top 50 most inspiring women in tech in Europe
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

She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours.^[4]

References

↑ "OpenTable to buy toptable.com for $55 million". Business Week. 2010-10-15. Retrieved 2011-10-03.
↑ Hanks, Abby (March 2004). "What makes a successful entrepreneur?". AllBusiness. Retrieved 2007-02-27.
↑ "Women In Business Seminars". Women In Business. Retrieved 2007-02-27.
↑ The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 59446. p. 17. 12 June 2010.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 4/30/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.