Dragons’ Den star Sara Davies MBE has revealed how she doesn’t ‘chastise’ herself for missing her children’s school sports day.
The entrepreneur was speaking at BusinessCloud’s sell-out Northern Leaders event alongside Greggs CEO Roisin Currie and Moja founder Sophie Milliken, who all spoke about the challenges of being working Mums.
KPMG’s Newcastle office hosted the discussion, which was sponsored by Lycetts.
Davies recently announced she was quitting Dragons’ Den to focus on the business that she founded, Crafter’s Companion, after rescuing it from administration.
She’s also been appointed Growth and Entrepreneurship Partner at Travel Counsellors, hosted the ITV show Time is Money and written a new book called ‘The Six Minute Entrepreneur’.
Explaining how she juggles all her commitments she said: “I just couldn’t commit to filming another season of Dragons’ Den in this year because of everything I’ve taken back on with Crafter’s Companion. But what I find is that if I turn up to something and give it 100 per cent of my focus in that moment.
“As a working woman, I look at other women who maybe gave up their careers to bring up their families, and that is wonderful. I am massively envious of the time they get to spend with their kids, but if I had done that, I wouldn’t be happy. I wouldn’t feel fulfilled as a woman, and that might make me really selfish to say that – but I would not be happy as a stay-at-home Mum.
“Would I love to spend more time with my kids? Absolutely. So I don’t chastise myself for the decisions I make. I champion myself for them.
“I missed sports day last year, and I was utterly devastated about that fact… but it was right while we were filming Dragons’ Den.
“Could I hell as like tell the BBC that ‘Peter Jones might have cancelled a big meeting, and Steven Bartlett flew in from the US for this… but my kids have sports day!’
“But I did make both of the kids’ school nativities last year. And so when I look back and I think about how I performed as a mother, I really champion that fact and I don’t chastise myself for not making sports day. It’s accepting that I can’t be all things to all people all the time – I need to revel in what I’ve done really well.”
Davies told the audience how growing up in an entrepreneurial family shaped her own business philosophy.
“My Mum and Dad had the wallpaper and paint shop in our village,” she said. “A lot of people always say to me: ‘Are entrepreneurs born, or are they made?’
“Well, I don’t know, because I was born into an entrepreneurial family with the entrepreneurial genes, but I grew up knowing nothing else than running our own business.
“A painter and decorator would come knocking on our door at 10 o’clock at night because they needed a tin of paint for a job at six o’clock the next morning. My mum would just put a dressing gown on, open the shop and mix a tin of paint.
“There was no line where our life ended and the business started, and I grew up knowing that that’s what I wanted to do. I was prepared to live that life and everything that went with that life.
Roisin Currie, Sophie Milliken and Sara Davies at Northern Leaders event
“They were able to work the business around our family needs. My Mum and my Nana worked in the shop. If one walked me to school, the other one was there to pick me up from school.
“I saw all the benefits our family had from running the business, but I also saw the price they paid to make that work.
“When people say to me: ‘It must be great running your own business because you can knock off in time to do the school run’ – I think ‘you’re not cut out for this life’.
“Very few people are cut out for the sacrifice that it takes to be an entrepreneur. But when you meet them, you know they’ve got it in them.
“When I’m in the Den, that’s what I’m looking for. When someone comes walking through them lift doors, do they really understand what it takes to be an entrepreneur? Do I think they’ll make the sacrifices? Do they care enough to make that work?”
Greggs CEO Roisin Currie revealed how she was juggling two jobs at a Glasgow shoe shop and Asda by the age of 17.
She recalled: “We didn’t have a lot of money so we didn’t go on holidays abroad and things like that
“I knew that if I wanted to have money to spend myself, I needed to earn it. So I worked in a shoe shop on a Saturday and did Asda two nights a week.
“When I became old enough, I did a day in the bookies too. And then, when I went to university, I was really lucky because there was a local GP that needed somebody to do his filing just one bus ride away.
“I didn’t go to the Student Union a lot. I didn’t get to socialise. But I never look back and regret that, because I developed skills around that hard work – and actually, I couldn’t spend it because I had another shift!
“It didn’t make me feel tired. It actually gave me energy! And it inspired me to want to go into business.”
Currie spent 20 years at Asda, rising up through the ranks, before joining Greggs in 2010 and becoming the company’s first female CEO in 2022.
She’s overseen a period of unprecedented growth – but credited her colleagues for the company’s success
“We are very fortunate in that the Greggs family set the business up very much about doing the right thing and with a really strong sense of purpose,” she said.
“And I think no matter what job you do, you might have a sense of purpose that you’re doing the right thing, that you’re adding value.
“A couple of examples of how that has made the world a better place: this morning, we will have fed 75,000 schoolchildren across the UK a breakfast before they started class, who otherwise would have gone into class hungry.
“Then the food we haven’t sold at the end of each day we send to our outlet shops in areas of deprivation and sell it as a fraction of the price; but more than that, we then give a significant proportion of those profits to the Foundation.
“It’s an absolute privilege to run the business, and it does feel like a privilege every day. How do we keep things fresh? We try and keep our people really engaged. And as a result, they constantly come up with new ideas – such as new products.
“The best ideas come from our teams. I spend a lot of time out in our shops and out in our bakeries, because that’s where the hard work happens.”
Sophie Milliken MBE is the founder of Moja and a published author. She won the Business Champion Award North East at this year’s Northern Leader Awards.
Before launching her own business she worked as the head of graduate recruitment at the John Lewis Partnership, working under Andy Street, who went on to become the mayor of West Midlands.
“He was an outstanding leader for John Lewis,” she said. “At that point in time, John Lewis was the retailer to look up to, and we were admired by everyone. We had huge growth plans. I was there in the glory years.
“I got all of my business training through John Lewis. I met some amazing people, and I learned a lot, and it was brilliant. He was very good at bringing people with him.”
She said she regretted selling her first business – Smart Resourcing Solutions (SRS) – but was better equipped to run Moja.
“I’ve gone into it with a completely different mindset, lots of knowledge, lots of understanding around what not to do and how to set things up properly, so it feels different,” she said.
(L-R) Ian Barclay, Roisin Currie, Sophie Milliken and Sara Davies
“I’ve got a proper plan. I know what I’m doing. I know what the ambition is, and it’s exciting. Although it’s hard being back in startup mode again once you’ve been there and done that.”
The event was hosted by BusinessCloud’s Executive Editor Chris Maguire and attendees were given a signed copy of Davies’ latest book ‘The Six Minute Entrepreneur’.
The event was recorded by What Media for a future episode of the Northern Leaders podcast.