Jo Malone CBE (Dubai)

Jo Malone is the founder of the high-end fragrance and cosmetics range that bears her name and is responsilbe for some of the world's best loved scents. She has also presented BBC’s High Street Dreams, helping entrepreneurial individuals develop their own products for the mass market.

Leaving school at 14 to care for her sick mother, Jo started work on a beauty counter. She began mixing scents in her kitchen and giving them away as tokens of appreciation. This eventually gave rise to a complete range of luxury fragrances, bath oils, skin care and scented candles.

Today Jo Malone products can be found in upmarket department stores from Saks to Selfridges - and in homes, hotels and spas around the world. Jo grew it into global luxury brand. She sold her stake in the business to Estée Lauder, where she continued to work as Creative Director for seven years.

Jo left the original brand in 2006, but soon started asking herself if she could do it again. With a head full of ideas and natural entrepreneurial flair, she returned to mixing and experimenting and the result was a new range called Jo Loves. Starting out with a collection of eight fragrances and two innovative layered scented candles, the brand now incorporates a range of products available online and in stores worldside, including in the Jo Loves shop in London.

A regular in the media, Jo has also published her autobiography, My Story. In presentations Jo explains how she made it from council house to her own multi-million pound company. She reveals the successes, the failures, the challenges (both personal and commercial) and the motivation behind her achievements: “In the end, I always see myself as the girl in the store making face creams.”