BIG INTERVIEW
REFINING THE DETAILS
In 2021, Isla Rowntree stepped back from her role as the head of children’s bike brand Islabikes. Alex Ballinger sat down with Rowntree to explore how the market, and her life, has changed in the intervening years
It’s quite a lonely space,” said Isla Rowntree on her role at the head of a company. “To everybody within that organisation and
externally you look like you’re in control, and you need to appear like you’re in control most of the time.” In 2021 Rowntree, a former professional rider and founder of British kids’ bike brand Islabikes, announced that she would be stepping back from her role at the head of the company, after 15 years at the helm. Leaving a role after that period of time is no small decision, especially when you were the founder of the company, and had built it into one of the most recognisable and successful bike brands for children in the UK. Now two years after Rowntree stepped back, BikeBiz sat down to catch up with her on life and the bike industry.
22 | May 2023
Personal motivations “As with most bigger decisions,” Rowntree said, speaking from her home in Shropshire on why she decided to move into the background at Islabikes, “there are multiple inputs into it.” “I’d been doing it for 16 years at the time, so the reasons were mainly personal. “My parents live next door - my dad’s in his early 80s, my mum’s in her late 70s. They’re both well and healthy and still cycling, but I had a fear when I was working there would be a time when they would need me more, and feeling conflicted between that and the needs of the business. That was a really big one for me.” After a decade and a half, motivation to keep progressing the business also becomes an issue for many founders, particularly as senior roles often carry people away from the
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Islabikes founder Isla Rowntree
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