Sahar Hashemi

In 1995 Sahar Hashemi together with her brother Bobby founded Coffee Republic, and built it into one of the UK's most recognised high street brands with a turnover of £30m. Giving up highly professional jobs, she a lawyer in London and he an investment banker in New York, they staked everything on a dream - and made Coffee Republic one of the main players in the 'coffee revolution' that transformed a nation of tea drinkers into one obsessed with 'triple decaf half-caf lattes'.

Neither had any previous knowledge about retail or indeed coffee. But Sahar had developed a passion for the skinny lattes and fat free muffins she had seen in New York. How they came to build a nationwide coffee chain is a fascinating and inspirational tale of the ups and downs of following your dream. From the first conversation when the seed of the idea was planted, to getting a DTI Small Firms Loan Guarantee, finding a name and opening the first store, its a personal story about two people who stopped 'thinking about it' and 'did it'.

Sahar left the day to day management of Coffee Republic in 2001 and has written a book called 'Anyone Can Do It - Building Coffee Republic from our Kitchen table' which tackles some of the fears and answers some of the elusive questions about what it really takes to become an entrepreneur.

Published in January 2003, 'Anyone Can Do It' has reached #1 on the Amazon business chart. It is 'suggested reading' for the London Business School entrepreneurship course and Chapter 1 has been included as part of the syllabus of the Entrepreneurship summer school. The book has also been endorsed by the DTI, Prince's Trust and IoD and has received wide press coverage. It is now one of top 10 bestselling business books in the UK.

In 2003 Sahar received a number of accolades including:

• Being named by Her Majesty The Queen as a 'Pioneer to the life of the nation'
• Named 'Young Global leader' by the World Economic Forum
• Featured in 100 Most Influential Women in Britain by the Daily Mail
• Top 35 Women in British business under 35 by Management Today
• 20 most powerful women in Britain by Independent on Sunday .
• Shell liveWIRE survey of inspirational role models: 1) Richard Branson 2) friends/family 3) Anita Roddick 4) James Dyson 5) Sahar Hashemi

Sahar has been the cover of Management Today, Director, Business 550 and
The Observer and the BMI inflight magazine. Her media appearances include CNN Business Breakfast, BBC2, Radio 4, LBC, Radio 5 and BBC London amongst many others.

She is a speaker ambassador for the Prince's Trust. and has spoken as keynote speaker at various high profile events including the IoD Women's 2002 Summit, Wall Street Journal Europe Women in Business Summit and Microsoft annual conference. She was also an ambassador for the Skills for Business campaign appearing on billboards across the country and full page press adverts.

Most recently she has been appointed as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum (Davos), whose judging panel includes includes the CEOs of Yahoo, Pearson, NBC, Reuters etc. The Young Global Leaders are an elite group of 237 chosen from 8000 candidates worldwide and are described as extraordinary leaders, under 40 years old, and are clearly exceptional on a global level. Leading on from this, she attended Davos 2005, plus a separate summit in June designed to give the young global leaders 'a highly visible opportunity to have a significant impact on world affairs'.

She has also started her next venture, Skinny Candy, a range of sugar free sweets. It has already been listed as 'whats HOT!' in Tatler and 'a winner' by Rosie Boycott in ES magazine. Its going into Selfridges and Harvey Nichols and selling out already at Coffee Republic bars. Click here to read a recent interview Sahar gave to Growing Business magazine (link will open in a new window; you will need the acrobat reader to view it).

Speaking Topics:

• · The Entrepreneurial mindset
• Anyone Can Do It - the system of making it happen
• Intrapreneurship - sparking the entrepreneurial spirit within large organisations
• brand building and marketing- the entrepreneurs way

"...very many thanks for a brilliant and very inspirational talk last night."
Sahar spoke at a dinner for the DTI in December 2005

"...a quick email to say thank you to both Michael Portillo and Sahar Hashemi for speaking at B2B Midlands earlier this week.... Michael, as usual was very well received and Sahar was just perfect for our event and proved very popular."
B2B Portfolio - Sahar spoke at the B2B Midlands event in October 2005

" the delegates (and the crew) thoroughly enjoyed her presentation so we are all very pleased" RBS Conference in June 2005

'Sahar's passion for encouraging innovation energises room. It's the verbal equivalent of a double espresso from the Coffee Republic chain she co-founded' London Innovation Conference 2004

'she connected with the audience at an emotional level and made a lasting impression'.....Microsoft

'It is always inspirational to hear the story from someone who has really pursued their dream and made it come true, particularly in such a down to earth fashion'.....GlaxoSmithKline

'your presentation hit the mark by encouraging people to push back the boundaries, develop a more entrepreneurial approach and simply make things happen!'.....GIST

'a truly inspirational experience'......Intrapreneurs Bootcamp, Cambridge University

'her strong message delivered in a natural way free of business psycho-babble'.....Jersey Business Awards 2004

Sahar was seamless, no notes and no pauses, very well polished' Scottish Enterprise

'you were a hit' ROCHE

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