Sahar Hashimi

Sahar Hashimi co-founded the UK's first American-style Coffee chain, United Coffee Republic, and built it into one of the UK's best-known high street brands with a turnover of £30m. She gave up her career as a lawyer in London and devoted herself to a dream. The company she founded, United Coffee, played an important role in the early days of the coffee revolution. Sahar left the day-to-day management of United Coffee in 2001 to publish a best-selling book: Anyone Can Do It. The book has been translated into several languages and is the second best-selling book on entrepreneurship after Sir Richard Branson's Sir Richard Branson. The World Economic Forum in Davos named Sahar a Young Global Leader. The Daily Mail named her one of the 100 most powerful Women in the UK and Management Today magazine named her one of the 35 top business women in the UK. In 2005, Sahar founded Skinny Candy, which she sold to confectionery group Glisten Plc in 2007. Her book Switched On: 10 Habits to Being Highly Effective in Your Job, and Loving it was published in 2010. In 2011, Sahar was named one of the 10 top original thinkers by the board magazine Director, Other recipients of the honor include Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, and Sir Jonathan Ives, Apple's vice president of design and iPod designer. She was praised by the magazine for her views on entrepreneurship - that talented people with entrepreneurial spirit should not leave large companies to achieve success. Entrepreneurial behaviors, including ideas like mentoring, prototyping, and celebrating failure, can transform dreary companies into creative environments and turn autonomous robots into valuable employees. In 2011 she was invited to participate in the Entrepreneurs Forum set up by Business Secretary Vince Cable to advise the government on enterprise and business policy. She currently works for EON UK Consumer Council.