Rachel Elnaugh

Rachel Elnaugh (born 12 December 1964) is a British entrepreneur, who came to prominence as an investor on the first two seasons of BBC Two's TV show Dragons' Den, in which hers was the sole female perspective alongside four male entrepreneurs known as the Dragons.

Early life

Her family lived above her father's electrical shop, and she attended Chelmsford County High School for Girls. She originally wanted to take art history, however she was rejected by five universities, and she became an accountant and tax consultant with Arthur Andersen.

Career

Red Letters

Wanting to run a gift business, she had difficulty finding and presenting her father with tickets to go and see the England cricket team play India at the Lord's Cricket Ground for his birthday. She put the tickets in a series of boxed "clues" and, using the term "Red Letter Days", she developed the idea of orientating birthdays around special events into a viable and, at first, successful business. Aged 24 in 1989, she founded Red Letter Days, which provides unusual "experience" gifts such as tank driving, record production and aircraft flying.

The company grew to a £17.5million turnover, and led to Elnaugh's being a 2001/2 finalist in the Veuve Clicquot Businesswoman of the Year and Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

Administration

After a poorly made strategic and financial choice of expanding via supermarket distribution, Red Letter Days went into administration on 1 August 2005; the remaining assets and goods were bought by fellow Dragons' Den judges Peter Jones and Theo Paphitis. Although Elnaugh was at the helm before and at the time of the company's failure just days after the birth of her fourth child, she blames the problems on the actions of the last CEO whom she appointed in 2002, while she took a non-executive role.

ITV1's "Tonight Programme" had a more critical explanation of the demise of Red Letter Days, including unpaid suppliers and disappointed purchasers. The programme suggested the business model failed to escrow or earmark supplier payment equity, instead using it for working capital. However this failure may well be laid at the door of Red Letter Days' bankers who placed £3 million in a bond which they refused to release for use by the firm despite the fact that it related to vouchers that had expired and were not recoverable against the business.

Dragons' Den

Prior to the administration of Red Letter Days, the success of the financial turnover and her awards in 2001/2, resulted in Elnaugh's joining the BBC's Dragons' Den.

Following 5 investments over the first 2 seasons of the show, a result of disputes with various Dragons (Jones, Paphitis and Duncan Bannatyne), and the resulting uncomfortable position of the BBC if it allowed a perceived "failed" businesswoman to be on a business panel, she agreed to leave the "Dragons' Den" panel.

Motivational speaker

Elnaugh is now working as a venture capital adviser and business speaker. She has also written a book about "the entire business life cycle and the kind of lessons you learn along the way - through bitter experience - not just through my own experiences but through the eyes of the other entrepreneurs". Reviewed by Jonathan Guthrie in the Financial Times newspaper

Publications

• Business Nightmares: When Entrepreneurs Hit Crisis Point... 8 May 2008, Crimson, ISBN 185458409X

Personal life

Elnaugh presently lives in Bakewell, Derbyshire having moved from Sandhurst. She is known to be a very keen visitor to Rotherham in South Yorkshire in her spare time and has been known to compliment the town in the media on several occasions stating it is one of her favourite destinations in the country to visit and has fallen in love with the town

External links

• Rachel Elnaugh's website
• Rachel Elnaugh at the Internet Movie Database
• Twitter
• Business Nightmares

News items

• Rachel Elnaugh interviewed by Dave Harries from BizView.tv
• Telegraph August 2006