women in business 37


Citing her “simple” background, Willingham says although by then she had made enough money to fund a comfortable lifestyle, she also recognised she wasn’t ready to give up business life entirely.


“I still wanted to work but I wanted to call the shots, to be able to do the school runs, go on holiday with the family and be there for my children when they needed me,” she continued.


Having invested in other projects with her husband and business partner Michael Toxvaerd, Willingham then realised that being an entrepreneur and investor could be the very idea she was looking for.


“We asked ourselves, could we run this as a business,” she said. “For the first time in my life, I felt this could be the set-up I was looking for for the next 40 years.


“As an investor, you meet the most brilliant people and gain an insight into lots of different industries. I don’t want to create another monster, however, so it’s important to manage expectations in terms of how much time people expect you to be able to give them.


“In terms of choosing who to invest in, Michael and I have what we call the Sunday dinner test, in other words, would we want to sit down for dinner with them. You can have the best business idea, but if you can’t work with the person then there’s not a future in it.


“It’s also important that when you invest, you don’t take too much out of the business. The entrepreneur must always feel it’s their business, so it’s a question of finding the right balance and, over time, you get better at that.


“In terms of my life set-up, I’m very happy. I’m doing some really cool stuff with different businesses and we’re starting to see plans for some of the early businesses we invested in come to fruition.”


One such success story is The London Cocktail Company which, after what Willingham describes as “an incredibly fun journey so far, with a lot more to come” launched a public fundraiser on investment crowdfunding platform Crowdcube earlier this month.


On the topic of women in business, she says: “A lot of women are very vocal about being gender neutral but the reality is I am a woman and a mum and I don’t feel the need to be gender neutral.


“I am proud of the fact I have four great kids and I work. I don’t go out of my way to try and inspire people but if there is just one mum who thinks ‘I can do this’ as a result, then that’s great.


“I think you can’t ever judge someone else’s life by your own and you can’t say


THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – MARCH 2016 www.businessmag.co.uk


“I didn’t set goals, it’s been more about my way of life and my journey. The decision to work in restaurants abroad was because I couldn’t take a gap year and I wanted to travel.


“When I cashed in my shares in The Bombay Bicycle Club, it was because I needed more time as a mum. When I started to invest in people, it gave me the ability to enjoy businesses and add value without actually having to run them.”


The entrepreneur says she has two secrets to success:


• Understanding why you are doing something is a powerful motivator – in her case in order to achieve a certain way of life


• Always surround yourself with brilliant people.


A lot of women are very vocal about being gender neutral but the reality is I am a woman and a mum and I don’t feel the need to be gender neutral


what’s right or wrong for someone else. I have been very, very lucky, I know I am living the life that’s right for me and that’s what matters.


“When I speak to other people, I say find out what you want your life to be like and work towards it, that’s when you will be successful. I truly believe that happiness is a way of life, not a destination.”


Willingham says it was the need to be totally independent and to have freedom of choice which drove her ambitions, adding: “I wanted to ensure I didn’t rely on anybody else, if something was a success or a mistake, then the decisions were mine.


Looking to the future, Willingham wants “more of the same” and says the travel bug still burns brightly, leading her to predict a possible future move abroad, as she is keen to embrace new cultures, new foods and new languages.


Closer to home, however, her latest crusade is campaigning for money and financial management to be added to the curriculum in primary schools.


Through her consumer website www. letssavemoney.com and her work with families and young people, she says she is often “horrified” by the serious debt problems and lack of financial know- how that she encounters.


To this end, in conjunction with Experian, she has just launched Jangle, a new free app designed to help youngsters gain valuable money management skills while also helping them save for the things they want.


For her own financial nous, she credits her parents and her mother in particular, for knowing that handing out pocket money on a plate was never the answer – and there’s no doubt it was a life lesson which set off a burning desire in this Dragon’s success story.


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