Deborah Meaden ( dragons den lady)

Deborah's career to date
From a very early age Deborah Meaden knew she wanted her own business. Having left school after O-Levels Deborah studied at business college and following graduation worked as a sales room model in a fashion house before moving to Italy.

At the age of 19, with very little capital she launched her own glass and ceramics import company supplying upmarket stores like Harvey Nichols. Dissatisfied with the franchise model, Deborah sold her share to her business partner. With several successful businesses in the leisure and retail sector under her belt, she joined her family's business.


Starting out on the shop floor, Deborah eventually became Managing Director of Weststar Holidays. In 1999 she went on to acquire the major shareholding in a management buyout, later selling the company in a deal worth £33m whilst retaining a 23% stake.


Deborah still retained an active role at Weststar, but began to devote more time to finding good investment opportunities, including those she found on Dragons' Den, which she joined from Series Three.


In August 2007, she sold her remaining stake in Weststar Holidays for £83m, before making her first investment in a market research company, reflecting her interest and experience in marketing, brands and communications.


Deborah supports a number of charities and this year she has been mentoring entrepreneur Sarah Lu on her new range of youdoodogs, with £1 from each doll sold going to the Dogs Trust.

This is the view of Deborah from the Dragons den website and paints her in a good light a strong power full women who has lots of business experience and power in the business sector.
Deborah Meaden has also had some failure as she and another dragon invested into an entrepreneur and lost out with 5 figure looses.Although deborah is a female buissness idol this also shows that not all women including herslef make buisness mistakes.
Buisness women also have problems with family copmitments and work they are discriminated against for haveing children or getting married while working for or owning a buisness.