Mariessa Devlin - Entrepreneur

Mariessa Devlin was once told by her guidance teacher that ‘you're not going to get the grades’ ‘university is not for you’. She didn’t let that hold her back.

After moving to Glasgow to study at University she watched one of her friends who was always ‘buzzing and making things for her primary school’ and this was the pivot for Mariessa to decide that she wanted to become involved in teaching.

Mariessa tells us that she ‘loved teaching, what I did not enjoy as much was the bureaucracy and politics’, ‘but primary teaching was a door to what my business became’ and ‘making a difference to children’

Being seconded to Coca-cola to become their education manager and working with ‘one of the most inspirational bosses’ the marketing manager who taught Mariessa how to live and breathe a brand and that ‘decisions could be made very very quickly’.

Mariessa says ‘if it wasn’t for her husband Bernie, it wouldn’t have existed’ she was of course talking about their Enchanted Forrest nursery business. ‘My big dream’ was to open up a nursery and when she met Bernie he said ‘will you please stop talking about it and just do it!’

Moving on 6 years they had built a business of 5 nurseries employing 120 staff. ‘The biggest part of our success was having the right people surrounding us’

Listen now to the #Iwasgonnae podcast to hear more aof Mariessa's incredible life journey.