A View from the Top with entrepreneur and Dragons’ Den star Sarah Willingham

The former panellist on the BBC2 programme discusses her interest in business from childhood and knowing your strengths with Zlata Rodionova

Willingham explains how she balances a busy family life with running her own businesses (Sarah Willingham)

What do you want to achieve from your business?” is one of the first questions Sarah Willingham asks budding entrepreneurs who come to her for advice.

For the investor and former Dragons’ Den panellist, who has began working in the restaurant industry since the age of 13, the motivation has always been to put herself first and to create the family lifestyle that she wanted. “I never ever had any inspiration or dream of becoming an entrepreneur. It was driven by my lifestyle choices. I was running the international department at Pizza Express in my late twenties but I really wanted a family and lots of kids. It was never going to be possible to have the life that I dreamt of on the path that I was on. I needed to do something of my own where I was in control of my time.”

Willingham, now a millionaire and mother-of-four from Stoke-on-Trent, had an interest in business from an early age. “I was always interested in why we all bought the same chocolate bar at lunchtime or the same pair of Nike trainers. At 13 I started working in a local coffee shop, I loved the social aspect of it.” Driven by her interest in food, business and travel Willingham got two university degrees, one from Oxford Brookes University and the other from the Ecole superieure de commerce de la Rochelle, a business school in France.