Young, gifted and in the hot seat - Times Online

THE recession is bringing out the steel in this year’s list of 35 women under 35 – the youngest of whom is only 19. They excel in every sector, from commercial real estate to cosmetics. Unafraid to knuckle down and make tough decisions, these high achievers’ fierce determination to succeed makes them stand out.

A lot can happen in a year. The optimism of last year has given way to seriousness. Too young to have learnt from the last recession, the women on the list have found themselves in the business deep end without armbands – even more reason to celebrate their exceptional success. If you can make it now, you can make it any time.

Our lineup, picked by Management Today, the magazine, is notable for a host of reasons. Although the average age remains the same as last year – just 31 – we feature the youngest to appear on the list. Inventor Ruth Amos is 19 and is taking three years out after A-levels to build her Stair Steady business. “My age is not only my biggest help but my biggest hindrance,” she said. “When I started, every major bank refused me business banking and that hit me really hard.”

Close to two-thirds of our achievers studied what some still think of as “male” subjects at university: science, business, law and economics; a third went to Oxford, Cambridge or the LSE. More than 50% work in traditionally male sectors and our poster girl must surely be Katy Taylor. The 28-year-old has a first-class degree in geological sciences from Cambridge and a master’s in engineering from Dartmouth College in America. She started out as an army officer, joined McKinsey, the consultancy, and now heads planning, performance and improvement at the Metropolitan Police.

Jade Tong works in the macho world of commercial property as an associate director at DTZ. She said it’s “about being yourself, bringing something different to the mix. I don’t worry about the advantages or disadvantages of being a woman. I just enjoy it and learn from the experience”.

Our 2009 heroines have succeeded in every kind of business: advertising, management consultancy, cosmetics, the law, banking, retail, engineering, property, PR, IT, broadcasting, the arts and the public sector. Take Savannah Miller, who runs fashion label Twenty8Twelve with her film star sister, Sienna. What’s the secret of her success? “Just a fierce determination not to give up. If you want something bad enough, you can get it – no matter what.”

With two young children and a teenage stepson, Miller has her work cut out. “As a woman, it’s extremely challenging juggling all that stuff. Having a family gives me a determination to succeed.”

When a capacity for ferocious hard work allies itself with green campaigning, the result is Kate Hampton. She has been made director of climate-change policy at the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, and before that worked at Climate Change Capital and Friends of the Earth.

Being female and under 50 made her stick out from her male peers. “In my twenties, the real problem was getting people to take me seriously – especially older men. And I think the key to everything is to maintain your confidence.” This year is a first in that four of the women on the list are on maternity leave. It’s an issue often swept under the carpet. According to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, an estimated 30,000 women every year illegally lose their jobs as a result of pregnancy, and that figure is expected to rise during the recession.

Happily, Samantha Mangwana, a solicitor with employment firm Russell Jones & Walker, specialises in cases of discrimination litigation for individuals, particularly sex discrimination in the City. “It’s an unfortunate reality,” she said, “that in many different industries, women on maternity leave are the first to be contemplated for redundancy.”

At a time when talent has never been so valuable, business needs to support women, not hang them out to dry. www.managementtoday.com

How they line up

RUTH AMOS, 19

The youngest ever woman on our list, Amos turned her GCSE coursework, Stair Steady – a device to help people climb stairs – into a business in 2007. She won the 2006 Young Engineer for Britain award and is taking three years out before university to build up her company.

RACHEL BARTON, 33

As a senior executive in Accenture’s CRM practice, Barton has an impressive track record, handling multi-million-dollar deals. She was recently voted most inspirational leader for management consulting in Accenture’s people oscars. A UCL graduate in physiology, she has worked at the Institute of Neurology. ALEXANDRA BASIROV, 32

Having joined BNP Paribas in 2006, Basirov, an Australian-born LSE graduate, heads its sovereign, supranational and agency debt capital markets team in the UK. The LSE graduate’s star should stay in the ascendant as demand for bank bailouts continues to drive governments to the capital markets.

LISA BURGER, 35

Starting as a YTS trainee at Monarch Airlines, she joined start-up Easyjet, where she went from check-in to leading airport operations, handling a budget of £350m. As director of Starbucks’ central London operations, she is responsible for £50m in sales and 1,000 employees.

KATE CRAIG-WOOD, 32

Craig-Wood began her career at Arthur Andersen. She co-founded web and IT hosting provider Memset with her brother Nick in 2002 – it now turns over £2m. Last year, transsexual Craig-Wood won a NatWest Everywoman award. She was the first woman to tandem skydive on to Everest.

EMILY CUMMINS, 22

Her love of inventing began at the age of four, and Cummins’ latest creation, a solar-powered fridge, is helping thousands of Africans. She won 2007 British Female Innovator of the Year and now studies management and sustainability at Leeds University, where she was its Enterprise Scholar 2008.

OLLY DONNELLY, 29

An Oxford geography graduate, with stints at Accenture and the World Bank, Donnelly founded Shivia Microfinance last year, a charity helping the poor in Nepal and India. She is also managing director of Leadership Media Advisory and director of Do Development, which advises on corporate social responsibility.

ZEENA FAROOK, 27

A geotechnical engineer at Arup, Farook was named New Civil Engineer’s graduate of the year in 2006. The Oxford scholar is working on Arup’s Olympic Park infrastructure group in London, the Rees Way Mosque in Bradford and projects for Leeds Metropolitan University.

ELSPETH FINCH, 33

A transport planner by background, Finch co-founded pedestrian modelling consultancy Intelligent Space in 2000 at the age of 24. The company was bought by WS Atkins in 2007 and she is now its director for highways and transport.

MELISSA GEIGER, 32

The youngest of 565 equity partners at KPMG, Geiger works in financial services tax and leads the financial M&A team in London. She previously worked at Accenture and Standard Chartered and is an accomplished ballroom dancer.

KATE HAMPTON, 34

An LSE graduate with a master’s from Harvard, Hampton began her career at Friends of the Earth as head of its climate change campaign. She then moved to Climate Change Capital as head of policy before joining the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation as a director. She was named a 2008 World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.

SOPHIE HOWARTH, 33

Before becoming founding director of the School of Life – a philosophy school and shop – last year, Howarth worked as head of education at Iniva and was curator of public programmes at Tate Modern. She writes about photography.

JOHANNA KYRKLUND, 32

A Financial News rising star, Oxford graduate Kyrklund is head of world multi-asset business at Schroders, responsible for overseeing investments of £11.2 billion and a member of its five-strong global asset allocation committee. She was previously at Deutsche Asset Management and Insight Investment.

PRIYA LAKHANI, 28

Lakhani quit as a barrister to start Masala Masala, an Indian sauce company, and was voted Daily Mail Enterprising Young Brit. Her products are sold by Waitrose, Harrods and Harvey Nichols. She set up the Masala Masala Project – for every pot sold, a homeless person in India is given a meal.

CLARE LANGFORD, 28

Tesco’s technical manager for salad and prepared produce manages a turnover of more than £18m a week. Langford leads a team that sources products from more than 2,000 growers across 20 countries. She has been identified by Tesco as one of its future leaders.

CLAIRE MASON, 34

The Oxford graduate set up PR agency Man Bites Dog four years ago and has won several awards since, including PR Week’s New Consultancy of the Year 2007-8. The agency, which targets professional services firms, boasts profit margins four times the industry average and is expanding rapidly.

SAMANTHA MANGWANA, 34

An employment solicitor at Russell Jones & Walker, Mangwana specialises in discrimination law. She has worked on high-profile cases, including acting for BNP Paribas trader Katharina Tofeji. She is a trustee of the Fawcett Society, the leading national charity campaigning for gender equality.

SOPHIE MAUNDER-ALLAN, 35

At 29, Maunder-Allan became the first female shareholder at VCCP – the ad agency behind comparethemarket.com’s Meerkat campaign – and then the first female equity partner. Now head of strategic planning, she has won the IPA Effectiveness Awards Grand Prix for client O2.

SAVANNAH MILLER, 30

Creative director of designer label Twenty8Twelve, Miller has hit the fashion spot. The Central St Martins graduate previously worked for Anya Hindmarch, Betty Jackson, Matthew Williamson and Alexander McQueen. She set up the business with her sister Sienna in 2006 and it put on its first catwalk show this year.

LISA MYERS, 31

Norwegian-born Myers, an expert in search marketing and search engine optimisation, founded Verve Search in February. She was head of search at Base One and won the under30 category of the BlackBerry Women & Technology Awards in 2008.

ROSIE NAGRA, 32

Nagra joined Reckitt Benckiser in 2007 as marketing manager on Finish, its global dishwashing brand. She worked at Kraft Foods for six years, helping to launch Philadelphia Splendips and was one of Marketing Week’s 2007 Top 50 Rising Stars.

AZITA QADRI, 35

Cambridge graduate Qadri is behind Eat Your Cake, which helps start-ups to recruit high-calibre professionals who need flexible working hours. Qadri brings her experience from eBay, where she got retailers to sell excess stock on site, and from her Insead MBA. She plans to take Eat Your Cake Europe-wide next year.

DEBORAH REGAL, 34

During a 10-year City career in foreign exchange sales, Regal worked at Bloomberg and JP Morgan. Now studying for the Bar, she is also an independent member of the Metropolitan Police Authority and was named Pro Bono Hero by the attorney-general for her legal charity work.

CLARE REICHENBACH, 35

As BBC Worldwide’s head of strategy, Reichenbach supports the chief executive and directors of the BBC’s commercial arm. The Oxford graduate has also worked for Gemini and BSkyB and was head of strategy for BBC Vision.

EMILY SHENTON, 33

Shenton joined Unilever as a graduate trainee but moved to start-up media company eDv, taking its turnover into the millions. In 2004 she joined Arrival Education, a charity that links inner-city schools with businesses to give pupils career support.

KATE SMAJE, 30

Smaje is the youngest partner globally at McKinsey, where she specialises in retail. She began her career in M&A at Chase Manhattan and JP Morgan before rising to be elected partner at McKinsey last year. She is involved with Arch, a charity for children in developing countries.

EMER STAMP, 34

Senior creative director at start-up ad agency Adam & Eve, Stamp was responsible for winning the John Lewis account. She joined from DDB in 2008 where she won the IPA Grand Prix. Campaign has identified her as an executive creative director of the future.

LAURA STEVENSON, 32

Joining Sadler’s Wells this year as general manager, Stevenson is responsible with the chief executive for setting strategy for the London dance theatre company. The Cambridge graduate and ex-McKinseyite has been deputy director at the Hayward Gallery.

GAYLE TAIT, 32

After graduating from Oxford, Tait joined L’Oréal’s graduate scheme in 1999, working her way up from marketing director for L’Oréal Paris UK to general manager for UK and Ireland. Tait has produced revenues 30% ahead of the market for the past three years.

KATY TAYLOR, 28

The head of business planning in the Metropolitan Police’s strategy department began her career at McKinsey, where the Cambridge graduate set up a sports consultancy and worked on the commercial strategy for the London 2012 Olympics.

BIJAL THAKORE, 27

The aerospace engineer, who runs her own engineering and business consultancy, Big On Good, was awarded the 2009 Women Engineering Society’s Young Engineer Award.

JADE TONG, 34

An associate director at DTZ – the fourth-largest global property adviser – Tong has won more than £23m-worth of business for the company. She has also secured lottery funding to set up a Vietnamese and Chinese community club for the elderly.

HOLLY TUCKER, 32

Co-founder of notonthehighstreet.com, Tucker and business partner Sophie Cornish have been selling luxury wares since 2006. They are on track to turn over £6m this year.

BIANCA WATTS, 30

Watts is making big waves as executive director at Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management, where she heads a team advising the super-rich across Europe and the Middle East. Watts joined as a graduate in 1999 and soared through the ranks.

NEMONE WYNN-EVANS, 34

The chief financial officer of junior stock exchange Plus Markets Group is a former Oxford rower, whose mother was among the first female stock exchange members. She has worked at KPMG and HSBC James Capel.

via business.timesonline.co.uk