Anita Roddick
Founder of The Body Shop1942–2007 · UKOpened one shop to feed her children, and built a retail chain by refusing to do what cosmetics retail did.
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James Dyson
Bagless vacuum cleaners, then motors, hand dryers and hair careborn 1947 · UKSpent years and thousands of prototypes on a product nobody in the industry wanted to sell.
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Ingvar Kamprad
Founder of IKEA1926–2018 · SwedenBuilt the world's biggest furniture retailer by designing the price first and the product afterwards.
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Herb Kelleher
Co-founder and long-time chief executive of Southwest Airlines1931–2019 · USAMade an airline profitable for decades by refusing to add things customers were not paying for.
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Sara Blakely
Founder of Spanxborn 1971 · USAStarted with a few thousand dollars of savings, no outside investment, and no experience of the industry.
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Andrew Carnegie
Built the largest steel operation in the United States1835–1919 · Scotland / USAUnderstood his costs in more detail than anyone else in the industry, and used it to price competitors out.
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Estée Lauder
Built a global cosmetics company from a handful of creams1906–2004 · USAGave the product away in small quantities until people came back to buy it.
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Charles Dunstone
Co-founder of Carphone Warehouseborn 1964 · UKSold mobile phones to people the networks were ignoring, by explaining rather than selling.
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Steve Jobs
Co-founder of Apple, and of Pixar's success1955–2011 · USAWas thrown out of the company he founded, spent twelve years elsewhere, came back and made it the most valuable in…
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Henry Ford
The moving assembly line and the Model T1863–1947 · USADid not invent the car, the assembly line or mass production — but put them together and changed what a factory was.
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Sam Walton
Founder of Walmart1918–1992 · USABuilt the world's largest retailer by opening in the towns everyone else thought were too small.
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Richard Branson
Virgin — records, airlines, trains, mobile and moreborn 1950 · UKTurned a brand into the product, then licensed it into industries he knew nothing about.
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Dame Stephanie Shirley
Founded Freelance Programmers, staffed almost entirely by women working from homeborn 1933 · UKArrived in Britain as a child refugee, founded a software firm in 1959 with £6, and signed her letters 'Steve' so…
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John Spedan Lewis
Gave his department store business to its employees1885–1963 · UKWorked out that he was earning more than the entire staff combined, decided that was indefensible, and signed the…
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Julian Richer
Founder of Richer Soundsborn 1959 · UKRan the hi-fi shop with the highest sales per square foot in the world, then gave the business to his staff.
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Jack Cohen
Founder of Tesco1898–1979 · UKStarted with a market stall and a demob gratuity, and built it on 'pile it high, sell it cheap'.
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Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel
Founder of Chanel1883–1971 · FranceBuilt a luxury house by taking things away — and licensed a perfume in a deal that shaped the rest of her life.
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Warren Buffett
Berkshire Hathawayborn 1930 · USAMade a fortune by buying understandable businesses at sensible prices and then doing almost nothing for decades.
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Phil Knight
Co-founder of Nikeborn 1938 · USAStarted by importing Japanese running shoes out of his car, and spent years one bad month from insolvency.
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Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer
Founders of Marks & Spencer1859–1907 and 1852–1905 · UKA penny bazaar in Leeds market with a sign that solved a language problem and invented fixed pricing.
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