On the eve of International Women’s Day, children’s author J K Rowling has been voted the most inspirational businesswoman in a survey of UK freelancers by Crunch Accounting.
Earning 23 per cent of all votes, Rowling beat a high profile field of business personalities, including online shopping entrepreneurs and creators of notonthehighstreet.com Holly Tucker and Sophie Cornish and The Body Shop founder Anita Roddick.
Other female leaders who also received recognition were Martha Lane Fox CBE, member of the House of Lords and former UK Digital Champion who co-founded lastminute.com and football managing director and TV personality Karen Brady.
The research was conducted to celebrate International Women’s Day which is a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future, with 400 events scheduled across the United Kingdom.
Laura Hughes, Accountancy Training Manager at Crunch Accounting, said: ”We conducted the research to understand which high profile women are setting the best example and inspiring the freelance business community – a group that now makes up 14.5 per cent of the country’s total workforce, with 4.37 million self-employed currently working in the UK.
“The results have been really interesting. Women from across the digital and creative industries received far more votes than the corporate heavyweights, like Santander CEO Ana Patricia Botín. Above all however, the results remind us of the diverse and varied range of female business personalities that the UK has to offer, a fact well worth celebrating on Saturday for International Women’s Day.”
