Anita Lucia Roddick, OBE 

 Born:  23 October 1942, 

Married: T. Gordon Roddick, 1970 

Children: Justine 1969, Samantha 1971 Education:  Maude Allen Secondary Modern School for Girls, Littlehampton Newton Park College of Higher Education, Bath

Career:

1962-76:Worked in Library of International Herald Tribune, Paris, Teacher of English and History, Worked in Women’s Rights Dept. of International Labor Organization (ILO) based at UN in Geneva, Owner and manager of restaurant and hotel in Littlehampton

1976 -  The Body Shop Int. PLC: opened Brighton, Sussex, England, Founder and Chief Executive 

Trustee:  The Body Shop Foundation, 1989-  , New Academy of Business, 1996-

Patron: 1987- START - Skin Treatment and Research Trust, 1991- Schumacher College for Human Scale Education,  1994- Association for Creation Spirituality, 1995- Findhorn College of International Education, 1996- Body and Soul (women and families with HIV and AIDS) 

Main Awards: 1984- Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year, 1988- British Association of Industrial Editors, Communicator of Year, 1988- County Nat West Retailer of Year,   1988- OBE (Order of the British Empire or Other Buggers' Efforts, according to Sam, my daughter), 1989- UNEP Global 500 Roll of Honour, 1991- Center for World Development Educ. World Vision Award, 1992- National Association of Women Business Owners (US), Business Leader of Year, 1993 - International Banksia Environmental Award, 1994- Botwinick Prize in Business Ethics, 1994- University of Michigan Annual Business Leadership Award, 1995- Women’s Business Development Center (USA) First Annual Woman Power Award, 1996- Hunter College Campus Schools, American Dream Award, 1996- Women’s Center, USA: Leadership Award, 1996- Institute of Charitable Fundraising Managers (UK),  Philanthropist of the Year  

Interview with Anita Roddick

Do you see yourself as a leader? What is your vision?

Is leadership the kind of thing you assume or you have thrust upon you?  When I opened my first shop, my ambition was simple.  I wanted to earn an honourable livelihood and it seemed obvious that the way to do it was to go in the opposite direction to everyone else in the cosmetics industry.  So I earned a degree of pioneer status.  With success came the sense that business has a responsibility to act as an agent for positive change.  Again, that was a pioneering stance. So for anyone who is interested in leading, I would say be a pioneer.  

What are some of your prominent strengths and weaknesses?

My strengths are passion, commitment, speed and creative thinking.  But put them all together and you get one of my major weaknesses, which is impatience.  And I know I’d be better off if I was a little more contemplative.    

What or who have been some of the significant influences that have helped you become the person you are today?

First and foremost, my mother.  She always told me to be anything but mediocre, and her fierce individuality was all the role model I needed when I was growing up. Later, I would say that Gloria Steinem’s words and deeds had a profound effect on me.  And even more recently, the friendship of theologian Matthew Fox has changed the way I look at life.  Professionally, I was inspired by the Quakers who made money because they offered honest products and treated their people decently, worked hard themselves, put back more than they took out and told no lies.

What would you highlight as being the most important principles of management that you try to implement in The Body Shop?

My mantra is responsibility and accountability.  The Body Shop has always had a dual bottom line: profits and principles.  We believe our values add value, because people aspire to more than money and we want to meet those aspirations, in our staff, our customers and our stakeholders.

What do you attribute the success of The Body Shop to?

First and foremost, the products.  All the good intentions in the world won’t float a business if you’re not making a product that people want.  But, as I just said, our values added value.  I believe our commonsensical, holistic approach struck a chord from the very start.  And the timing was perfect.  A lot of people were clearly feeling the way I felt about cosmetics when I opened my first shop.  Since then, we have stayed true to our original values even as we grew globally, so I think people recognise a real integrity and honesty about the way The Body Shop does business.

Why do you align your business ventures to a social and environmental agenda?

I can’t imagine any other way.  I’ll say it again and again: business must behave responsibly, especially as it becomes a richer, more powerful force for change in the world than most governments.  Globalisation is ultimately reductive, which means it is ultimately geared towards short-term results.  If you truly want to ready your business for the future, I can’t see any other way than respecting human rights, protecting the environment and trying to enhance the community everywhere that you’re operating.  Ethical business is common sense.  You can think of it as husbanding your resources if you like. 

How do you encourage leadership in your employees?

You have to emphasise the human spirit.  Spirituality in business is not about esoteric, religious, cosmological or other ephemeral ideas.  It is rooted in the concrete action of real people whose sense of care extends beyond themselves. We all need – let alone want -  work to be filled with opportunities for personal growth and discovery. The challenge for new business leaders is to provide a context in which the spirits of employees can expand and transform.  We should be looking at the community of the workplace, making sure it stays open and frank, so that everyone in the organisation feels capable of being a leader and creativity is never hostage. And we should remember that even if a highly creative workplace is not always a comfortable place to be, it can be a place where people will argue gracefully, and where we can give ourselves the space and time to re-examine things.

What personal traits do you feel are necessary if one is to develop one's leadership potential?

I say it in my book: the ability to communicate, motivate and delegate; the ability to identify and cultivate talent; the ability to think “outside-in” rather than “inside-out”.  I also think effective leadership is about influence, not control.  Change grows organically from the efforts of a team.  It is the leader’s role to channel those efforts.    

Do you think that the status of women in business today has changed much in comparison to when you were launching your business?

The business world is still a male-dominated hierarchy but the impact of the ethical business movement means that so-called “feminine” values such as a sense of community are being put forward as new paradigms. These values reflect intimate personal and cultural attributes which are in many ways the reverse of the global market syndrome, which is all about distance, impersonality, and the movement of capital regardless of human consequence.  Women build alliances, bring people together and most importantly, they develop networks.  Their biggest strength is communication. And I believe they are more naturally entrepreneurial than men, so they are more inclined to carve out their own niches rather than endeavour to squeeze into one that already exists.  All of this is changing the status of women in business now, but I feel there are much more fundamental changes just around the corner, especially because the ferocious competitiveness of an increasingly global economy is genderless in its need for talent.

What changes would you like to see in leadership and management practices of the corporate world?

Big business has to switch from private greed to public good.  Compassion has to count as much as cash flow. Ideals as fundamental as environmental awareness and protection of human and animal rights have to be written into rules of corporate governance, so that all businesses are aware of their responsibilities. In the modern business agenda,  money counts – and only money. Because the profit bottom line is such a crude, blind measure, it allows only the crudest attitudes,  the most reductive interpretations.  But with business such an all-consumingly powerful force in the world,  try to imagine if it measured life by criteria beyond profit: people's sense of fulfilment, their creativity, their spirituality. When it comes down to it, the gauges of real wealth are things like creativity and imagination.  That’s the direction of true progress, and business must eventually follow it.

You are involved in a variety of initiatives including running a global business to establishing an innovative degree of Management, what other areas would you like to branch out to?

The thing that is most interesting to me right now is publishing.  I am looking forward to a new venture I’m setting up which will run the gamut from books to new media. 

Did you enjoy writing your new book, "Business as Usual"? Why did you write it?

The Body Shop celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2001, and it’s been nearly ten years since my last book Body And Soul.  So there was clearly a lot more to say. The 90’s were an incredibly challenging decade for the company, and, because we have been pioneers in the ethical business movement, I think that our experiences can be illuminating for any business that wants to follow in our footsteps.  Aside from all that, the last ten years have been personally challenging.  Yes, you could say I have reached a defining moment in my career as an entrepreneur, and this book is partially an effort to capture how and why that is the case.  And I guess I enjoyed the time to reflect on it all. 

What advice would you offer women of your age?

The same advice my mother always gave me: reinvent yourself.  She told me that’s what I’d be doing in my 50s and she was right. I think women get more radical as they age.  I know I’m finding this time in my life liberating.  I’ve always loved changes, and ageing has been like a sequence of little beginnings.  That seems to be a fact the ageing world is waking up to.   As usual, statistics tell their own tale.  In the UK, women 45-55 now go to the movies 55 per cent more than five years ago.  Health clubs have had a 55 per cent increase in the number of 45-49 year-olds over the past 10 years (compared to 25 per cent for 25-29 year-olds).And everywhere I go, I meet women my age who are saying, “Define me by things other than my look - wisdom, humour, a grasp of what really matters in life.”   For them, the key things are intimacy, communication, making connections with people who share their views.