The author of a new book on modern businesswomen, Michelle Rosenberg, introduces exclusive profiles of the women behind the growth of three enormously successful brands: children’s toiletries business Halos n Horns, Fairtrade leader Cafédirect and the ubiquitous SpecSavers

Female entrepreneurs ‘do it’ – run their own businesses, that is – in a surprising variety of ways, many with the aim of managing their work and home life as effectively as possible.

Some seek out full-time childcare. Others work only three or four days a week. Still more deliberately choose to grow their businesses slowly in order to retain some semblance of work-life balance, not just for themselves, but also for their staff. I wanted to illustrate that women can do things their way without feeling they have to behave like a man to make it.

Indeed, the majority of women I interviewed believe it is their gender that enables them to be so successful in harnessing the interest of their consumers.

They are able to use their emotion and intuition to promote a business concept that is part commerce, part social philanthropy in a way most men probably can’t. In short, it seems the very characteristics perceived as weak in the past are the ones that enable today’s businesswomen to be so attuned to the public zeitgeist. Some may argue that these women shouldn’t be defined by their gender. That they are simply business executives or entrepreneurs and their sex has nothing to do with it.

I beg to differ. I believe that gender has everything to do with it. I wanted to show that you don’t have to be a ruthless ball-breaker, chained to your desk to make it.

In fact, I believe these women are making it on their own terms. It’s the attractiveness of these terms and the success these women have made of them that make them so inspiring. What’s more, they make no apologies for being feminine.

Leila Wilcox: Halos n Horns

Award-winning children’s toiletries range Halos n Horns began trading in August 2005 and broke even in its first month. Incredibly, annual turnover was £9.7m for the first year.

Appalled by the chemical concoctions in her son’s shampoos and bath washes, founder Leila Wilcox issued a challenge to the major players in the industry by removing all the harmful gunk linked to eczema, asthma and contact dermatitis from her own range. Developing the concept with friend Karen Dwyer (who’s no longer involved in the business) and Ivan Massow (her mentor from the Channel Four programme Make Me a Million, which she won in November 2005), the Oxford and Soho-based company’s shampoos and body washes are now stocked in Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Morrisons and Asda. Kid-friendly names like ‘Zingy Orange’, ‘Halo Baby’ and ‘Melon Mango Mayhem’ have no doubt helped.

Yet when she started out, Wilcox was startled by the fact that strangers were buying her products. She credits Massow for his encouragement. He said she could make Halos n Horns an international brand rather than limiting it to her idea of just selling online.

Thanks to a partnership with distribution specialists Ceuta Healthcare, which handles the day-to-day running of the business, the brand is expanding abroad in Ireland, Malta, New Zealand and Australia.

“We were constantly getting requests from retailers, distribution managers and even mums to sell abroad,” says Wilcox, “So we thought, we’ve got to do this. I couldn’t continue to develop, export and get all the products to mums, and they were getting frustrated. I was just so bogged down with the day-to-day running of the company that I couldn’t do anything to do with brand development, PR or marketing, so now I’m really focusing on where the brand’s going and international export.”

The crash

However, two months after exchanging with Ceuta, and just as she was in the process of handing over, Wilcox broke her back in a serious car accident.

“It meant Ceuta had to take over,” she recalls. “I would have probably carried on doing a lot more than I did, but because of the crash, I couldn’t. I was lucky, because if the crash had been a month or two earlier, then I don’t know what would have happened to the business. I hate to say it, but it probably would have gone bust, because I was the only one at that time before the exchange who knew who everyone was. I was doing everything, running the entire business.”

After the accident, she didn’t look at her computer or emails for around three weeks. “I couldn’t work, I lost every motivation, I just couldn’t get back into it,” she says. “Luckily, Ceuta took over and they didn’t need me to have any staff. They handled all the logistics, accountancy and distribution. Now I just work much more on the top line.”

With physiotherapy and hydrotherapy twice a week for her back and legs, the accident brought everything into sharp focus for Wilcox, who admits that the business now has a disaster recovery plan in place. “I used to do a lot of motivational speaking, but since the car accident I’ve realised that my favourite place is with my son,” she says.

Her plans include creating a full kid’s range, from nit shampoo to spiky hair gel, (“all nasty chemical-free of course!”), then products for adults. A sun cream range is also set for launch into retailers in spring 2008. “Eventually, I’d like to set up a charity or supportive network for women trying to set up businesses,” she says.

Her one piece of advice? “Never give up and give it your very best. That way you will never have regrets and, with luck, you’ll succeed.”

Leila Wilcox on women in business

“We have used the ‘one mum to another’ message to communicate our brand. If I had been a man, this would not have been possible. However, at first I felt disadvantaged. This, I later discovered, was because I was adopting a victim mentality caused by my own insecurities. Once I changed that mindset, I saw my gender as an advantage and played it to the full.”