Claire Davenport is CEO of notonthehighstreet, the home of the Uk’s best small creative businesses.
Prior to joining notonthehighstreet this year, Claire was CEO of the high-growth meal kit subscription start up HelloFresh UK and previously ran VoucherCodes.co.uk, accelerating its growth as the UK’s largest savings destination.
With an extensive background of scaling businesses and disrupting markets, Claire has been part of the executive team of a broad range of disruptor and tech brands over the past decade, including as Chief Commercial Officer at global online games company, Bigpoint GmbH, CMO for the launch of online education company FutureLearn and Chief of Staff at Skype. Prior to this, Claire was Executive Vice President of Strategy at Europe’s largest broadcasting company, RTL Group.
Claire started her career as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan. She has an MA in Natural Sciences from Cambridge and an MBA from INSEAD.
1. Best piece of advice you’ve been given
“Go for it”. I have been given this advice by people at lots of crucial times over the years. And it’s usually worked out well – whether I got the thing I was originally aiming for or was just happy I had had the experience of trying.
2. Worst piece of advice you’ve been given
Perm your hair – it’ll suit you (although that was the 80s). I don’t think I have been given a lot of bad advice – all perspectives from people who have experience or care about me are helpful (but then I take my own decision and responsibility for the consequences).
3. What would you tell your younger self?
Ask advice from more senior people in your network or company earlier. I didn’t know anyone in the business world when I was growing up and felt I had no-one experienced to bounce ideas off. As a result, I think I learned a lot of lessons the hard way. I didn’t know it was even a thing that people asked older people who weren’t their parents for advice! But now I am older, I know there would have been lots of more senior people who would have been happy to take half an hour to have a coffee with me to give me the benefit of their experienced perspective, had I only asked.
4. What excites you most about the future of your industry?
I am particularly excited about the way tech is enabling people to access products and services no matter where they live and to fit things around their busy lives. You can see this with advances in healthcare, self-driving transportation, mobile communication, finance and online education. I have recently become CEO of notonthehighstreet, the home to Britain’s best small creative businesses (and one of my all-time favourite brands!) and I am very excited about the opportunities people increasingly have to start up and successfully run a business wherever they want to live because they can get their unique products to millions of customers on our platform.
5. Who or what is your biggest inspiration?
I have a group of friends with whom I set up WITS END (witsendnetwork.com) to encourage women to aim high in their careers … and then keep going. These women inspire me every day. They are focused on leading in the right way, being true to good values and making time to lift up other people, as well as having careers and families. It inspires me that there are good people like this running companies and they make me want to do better.
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