Anita Roddick - Essay

For the first three years of their marriage, Roddick and her husband were content running their restaurant and eight-room hotel. She dealt with the customers while he took care of the behind-the-scenes management. However, after three years, the pair found themselves overworked and separated from their children. They decided to sell their restaurant and embark on their own pursuits. Roddick’s husband, an equally avid traveler, decided that he wanted to ride a horse from Buenos Aires, Argentina to New York City. Ever the supportive wife, Roddick agreed and stayed home to care for their two children. It was during her husband’s time away that 33-year-old Roddick decided to open up a cosmetics store. But, it wouldn’t be just any cosmetics store. Roddick wanted her operation to be natural and environmentally conscious. Roddick was known for her campaigning work on environmental issues and was a member of the demos think tank's advisory council. Children on the edge (COTE) is an organization that Roddick founded in 1990, in response to her visits to Romanian orphanages. Upon seeing the conditions the children were in, she created COTE to help manage the crisis and worked to de-institutionalize the children over the course of their early life. COTE's mission focuses on disadvantaged children affected by conflicts, natural disasters, disabilities, and HIV/AIDS. On 13 December 2005, the national pose reported that Roddick had decided to turn her back on the world of commerce and give away her fortune, worth some £51 million ($104 million). The Body Shop proved so successful that soon Roddick wanted to open a second store. When she was rejected for a $8,000 loan from the bank, Roddick turned to a gas station owner named Ian McGlinn, who agreed to purchase half a share in the company. By the time her husband returned, Roddick’s chain had become so popular that more and more people had begun inquiring about franchise