The Entrepreneurs

Tom Marchant is the co-founder and owner of The Black Tomato Group, a company built around luxury bespoke travel. Marchant and his two co-founders James Merrett and Matt Smith decided to launch a company after a trip in the 1990s. And while every firm in the sector offers unique travel experiences, Black Tomato continues to deliver. Its latest immersive travel experiences are aimed at helping clients improve particular aspects of their personal and professional lives.

Sara and Molly Sheridan are the mother-and-daughter team behind Reek perfume, an Edinburgh-based company launched in 2016 that makes scents celebrating women and Scottish heritage. Sara is a historical novelist and Molly is a make-up artist by trade – together with award-winning perfumer Sarah McCartney they’ve created a line of perfumes that honour Jacobite women in particular, and are based on scents hundreds of years old.

Tommy Kelly is the co-founder of outerwear brand Jöttnar, which aims to make the best kit possible for the world’s most-demanding alpine athletes. Kelly and co-founder Steve Howarth were both Royal Marines commandos.

Danielle Copperman is the founder of Qnola, a line of quinoa-based granolas with stockists including Whole Foods, Selfridges and Harvey Nichols in London, and La Grande Épicerie in Paris. Copperman is a full-time model and started the company after friends and contacts became interested in the gluten-free granola she was making for herself to take for long days at work. She is also a qualified nutritionist and has written her own cookbook.

Hayche is a London-based furniture-design studio that makes vibrant pieces from natural materials. Its pieces add colour and beautiful design to homes, restaurants, shops and hotels around the world. The brand was launched in 2014 by architect and angel investor Alejandro Villarreal, alongside longtime friend and collaborator Elizabeth Encinas, now Hayche’s head of marketing.

Nassib is the founder of Tappan, a digital native-art gallery. The aim of the platform is to make the contemporary-art world more accessible, connecting emerging artists with both seasoned and rookie collectors.

Richard Pierson is the CEO and co-founder of Headspace, the meditation app used by millions of people in more than 190 countries. Struggling to deal with stress and anxiety in his life, Pierson left a successful career in advertising. But when his struggles only got worse, he took up meditation, coached by Buddhist monk Andy Puddicombe. They went on to launch Headspace in 2010, first as an events company and later an app with the aim of making meditation more accessible.

Brothers Niklas and Mattis Oppermann are the co-founders of Carl Friedrik, a leather-goods business launched in 2012. Focussed originally on wholesaling, the company is now a direct-to-consumer brand producing bags, wallets and cases (mostly in Italy) using all naturally tanned leather with sustainable production methods.

Katerina Schneider is founder and CEO of Ritual, a vitamin company she founded after leaving behind a career in investment. When Katerina became pregnant, she set out to find a vitamin that was free of additives and that suited her vegan diet. Finding nothing on the market, she launched Ritual with Dr Luke Bucci, an expert in multivitamins. To date, Ritual has sold more than one million bottles and earlier this year closed a $25m (€22.3m) Series B investment.

With no experience in fashion or retail, Henry Hales launched a men’s underwear line in 2010, made from surplus fabric from the production of shirts. He had some sample boxer shorts made up, packaged them, and opened a stand in east London’s Spitalfields market. Today, Sirplus is a head-to-toe menswear label with shops in Islington, Portobello and Princes Arcade.