Visionary: Anita Roddick

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Career building visionaries can learn a thing or two about planning ahead from Dame Anita Roddick, the founder of famed beauty product retailer The Body Shop. Roddick’s vision in life leaned towards ethical consumerism, where fair global trade and ingredients untested on animals became standard operating procedure. It was a business operation that would change the world.

Roddick's vision in life to shape the world's cosmetics industry was no spur-of-the-moment decision. Her career building goals were clear even at a young age, with the feisty Brit getting herself involved with environmental and social issues. Her vision in life involved activism and partnership with many organizations that supported her goals, including Greenpeace and The Big Issue. Roddick was so concerned with the future impact of her business endeavors that she even founded a charitable institution called Children on the Edge; the purpose of the organization was to help disadvantaged children in Eastern Europe and Asia.

Roddick's career building moment came when she opened her first The Body Shop. By 1991, Roddick's The Body Shop had over 700 branches worldwide, and she was awarded the Award for Development Initiative by the World Vision Awards; 13 years later, The Body Shop had almost tripled that number and served more than 77 million consumers worldwide.

Central to the success of her vision in life was the desire to see the world a better place years down the road. To its credit, The Body Shop has changed the way fair markets operate, and impacted in immeasurable ways the economies of the third-world nations with which it does business. Further cementing her vision to change the world through environmental activism and fair and equitable global trade, Roddick began to channel her resources, worth almost US$104 million, to various institutions and charities. | 0 comments

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