A View from the Top: Hannah Anderson, co-founder of marketing group Social Chain

The social media-savvy entrepreneur on her real lifelong ambition, why the north is the place to be for startups and how it felt to join her childhood hero on a list of the UK’s most influential women

Hannah Anderson was studying to become a teacher when she was approached to join Social Chain

There are just a couple of startup success story tropes that Hannah Anderson subverts, but they’re pretty notable: one, she’s a woman, and two, she had the opportunity to drop out of university – but didn’t.

Growing up in the new town of Washington, between Newcastle and Sunderland, Anderson had one specific ambition from a young age.

“I wanted to be a primary school teacher,” she says. “I remember when I was five years old, looking at my teacher and thinking ‘that’s what I want to do’.”