Martha Lane Fox

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Martha Lane Fox (born 10 February 1973) is a British e-commerce business woman, charity trustee, board member of Channel 4, mydeco.com ^[1] and Marks & Spencer. She co-founded Lastminute.com, an icon of the dotcom boom of the early 2000s. She also co-founded Lucky Voice, the karaoke bar chain and is the British Government's first Champion for Digital Inclusion.

Contents 1 Personal life 1.1 Business career 1.2 Charity work 1.3 Personal life 2 References 3 External links

[edit] Personal life

Born in Oxford, Lane Fox is the daughter of the British historian Robin Lane Fox. She was educated at Oxford High School, Westminster School and Magdalen College, Oxford, where she read ancient and modern history.^[2]

[edit] Business career

After university she showed interest in acting and prison governorship but joined the consulting firm Spectrum, involved in IT and media companies. Her first project was for British Telecom called "What is the Internet ?", here she met fellow employee Brent Hoberman.

In 1998, Lane Fox and Hoberman founded Lastminute.com, an online travel and gift business that generated significant publicity, becoming an icon of the UK internet boom and floating at the peak of the dot-com bubble.^[2] On 20 November, 2003, it was announced that she would step down as managing director of Lastminute.com.

On 28 December 2003, it was revealed by The Sunday Telegraph that Lane Fox would become "right hand woman" of Galen Weston, owner of Selfridges, and take over the day-to-day running of the business.

In 2005, together with Nick Thistleton she launched a private karaoke company Lucky Voice with a club in London's Soho.^[2] The company have five bars countrywide, an online application plus the Lucky Voice Party Box which can be used with computers to create karaoke in the home.

In 2007 Lane Fox joined the board of Marks & Spencer as a non-executive director.^[2] She is also on the board of Channel 4.

On 16 June 2009, she was appointed the UK Government's Digital Inclusion Champion to head a two year campaign ^[3] to make the British public more 'tech savvy'.^[4][5] She has argued that "I don't think you can be a proper citizen of our society in the future if you are not engaged online."^[6]

[edit] Charity work

Lane Fox is a strong and vocal advocate of progressive causes including human rights, women's rights and social justice.

In 2007 she founded Antigone, a grant-making trust to support charities based in the UK.

She is a trustee and patron of Reprieve, a legal action charity, which made the news during its involvement in the release of UK resident Binyam Mohammed from Guantanamo Bay.^[2] Lane Fox is also a patron of Camfed, dedicated to fighting poverty, HIV and AIDS in rural Africa through the education of girls and young women.^[7]

[edit] Personal life

Lane Fox lives in Marylebone, London, with her long term partner, television producer Chris Gorell Barnes.^[8]

In May 2004 she was severely injured in a car accident in the tourist resort of Essaouira in Morocco. She spent a year in the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford having metal inserts and bone grafts.^[2] As a result, she is a registered disabled person, and is presently barred from driving.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• A BBC News interview with Martha Lane Fox
• A BBC News article about her stepping down as MD
• Girl, Interrupted – ES magazine interview post accident and recovery, archived at the Camfed website
• Lucky Voice Home online karaoke

Persondata
NAME	Lane Fox, Martha
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Businesswoman
DATE OF BIRTH	10 February 1973
PLACE OF BIRTH	Oxford, England
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH