Sara Davies had to work “twice as hard” for her success due to people’s prejudices about her.
Sara Davies had to work 'twice as hard' for her success due to people’s prejudices about her
The ‘Dragons' Den’ star, 40, is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the UK - with her arts and crafts company Crafter’s Companion estimated to have brought in £37 million - though the Yorkshire star has now admitted her gender and social background worked against her in her early days.
She told the Daily Mirror newspaper: “Quite often I was the only woman in the room, I was the only young person in the room, and I was the only person who sounded like this in the room.
“It used to frustrate me that people had a preconceived idea of me. They assumed that, because I had an accent and sounded like this, clearly I wasn’t as capable, or wasn’t as well educated, or I wasn’t going to be as good as my counterparts who had been through a private education, or who had grown up in a much more well-to-do-town or whatever it is.”
Despite the hardship she faced, Sara turned these hurdles into “fuel” that ultimately propelled her to success.
She continued: “I had to work twice as hard as the other people because I was always under-estimated. I started everything on the back front. I felt it first hand.
“For me, I turned that into fuel whereas a lot of people have been put in a box and they’ll sit in that box, whereas I was ‘You’re not putting me in a god damn box, I’ll show you’.
“It really drove me and that is what has inspired me to make a difference.”