Anita Roddick

British businesswoman and activist

• Born: October 23, 1942
• Birthplace: Littlehampton, West Sussex, England
• Died: September 10, 2007
• Place of death: Chichester, West Sussex, England

Roddick, one of the richest women in Great Britain, attained her wealth from The Body Shop, an international chain of cosmetic products made with natural ingredients. An environmentalist and activist for social change, she used her wealth to promote human and animal rights, rain forest preservation, and many other issues.

Sources of wealth: Patents; manufacturing; sale of products

Bequeathal of wealth: Spouse; children; charity

Early Life

Anita Lucia Perella Roddick, better known as Anita Roddick (ah-NEE-tuh RAW-dihk), was the third of four children born to Italian immigrants and café owners. After her mother’s divorce and marriage to Henry, her former husband’s cousin, Roddick learned that Henry was her biological father. Henry helped transform the café. He gave Roddick comics and collectable cards that she could trade, providing her with her first marketing lessons.

Roddick trained to be a teacher at Newtown Park College in Bath, England. In 1962, she received a scholarship that enabled her to live on a kibbutz in Israel. Roddick later worked for the International Herald Tribune in Paris and then took a job in the women’s rights department of the International Labor Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. She traveled widely, visiting Panama, Tahiti, Australia, South Africa, and other places, where she took note of the body care products available in these countries.

When her mother introduced her to Gordon Roddick, their rapport was immediate. The two married and had two daughters, Justine, born in 1969, and Samantha, born in 1971. The couple ran a bed-and-breakfast inn and an Italian health food restaurant in Brighton, England.

First Ventures

Gordon had always dreamed of riding horseback from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to New York, and the couple sold their restaurant to finance his eighteen-month, 5,300-mile trip. Anita continued to manage the inn, and in 1975 she began experimenting with techniques for creating cosmetics and body care products using natural ingredients. As a result, she developed fifteen products, secured a loan for $8,254 with the inn as collateral, and in 1976 opened her first store, The Body Shop, in Brighton. She later sold a 50 percent interest in the shop to Ian McGlinn, which gave her another $8,254. The first Body Shop was located between two mortuaries. Roddick used natural and herbal ingredients, such as honey, cucumber, avocado, cocoa butter, and oatmeal, to make her products, and she set up perfume bars in the store where customers could create their own fragrances. Her store received so much media coverage that she did not have to advertise.

After Gordon returned from his trip in 1977, he helped his wife with the business, providing Anita with more time for public speaking. The couple began selling franchises for The Body Shop in 1978 and opened a store in Brussels, Belgium, their first shop outside the United Kingdom. The Body Shop began selling its stock publicly in 1984, at which time the chain was worth 8 million, and Roddick’s personal fortune was 1.5 million. The Body Shop established an environmental projects department in 1986, and that year the Confederation of British Industries named the chain the company of the year.

Roddick opened her first American store in 1988, and by then the chain consisted of two hundred stores in thirty-three countries. She continued her political and environmental activism. In 1990, she founded Children on the Edge, a charitable organization that provides aid to disadvantaged children in Eastern Europe and Asia.

Mature Wealth

Roddick was made a member of the Order of the British Empire in 1988, and by1990, she was one of the richest women in Great Britain. She used her wealth to promote social change. Roddick provided funding for Big Issue, a magazine produced and sold by homeless people. In 1992, Roddick joined with executives of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and other companies to organize Business for Social Responsibility. She supported environmental groups, such as Greenpeace and Save the Whales.

Roddick’s concern for the environment and animal rights was evident in her management of The Body Shop. In addition to making her products from natural ingredients, she refused to test her products on animals. In 1996, she made a donation to the Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments. An advocate of the importance of skin care, Roddick also made financial contributions to the Skin Treatment and Research Trust. By 2000, seventeen hundred Body Shops were operating in forty-nine countries. Three years later, Roddick was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Roddick suffered from hepatitis C and cirrhosis of the liver. In 1998, she stepped down from her position as chief executive officer of The Body Shop, and four years later Gordon resigned as cochair of the company. The L’Oréal Group bought The Body Shop in 2006, and Roddick earned profits of $231 million from the sale. Roddick died the following year at the age of sixty-four.

Legacy

Roddick’s legacy was her concern for people, animals, and the environment, and she practiced the ethical behavior she preached. She donated the majority of her profits from the sale of The Body Shop to charity. Her donation of $1.8 million to Amnesty International continues to provide training to activists.

Bibliography

Handy, Charles, and Elizabeth Handy. Reinvented Lives: Women at Sixty, a Celebration. London: Random House, 2002.

Roddick, Anita. Business as Usual: My Entrepreneurial Journey. Chichester, West Sussex, England: Anita Roddick Books, 2005.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Take It Personally: How to Make Conscious Choices to Change the World. Berkeley, Calif.: Conari Press, 2001.