Dawn Gibbins launches new flooring company
By Melissa Hancock
Dawn Gibbins has just sold her flooring company Flowcrete for a cool £35m, but she’s not about to sit back and chew the cud. She’s now investing £2m to set up Barefoot Living - a domestic flooring business which she hopes will brighten up the UK manufacturing industry.

Time to cut your costs? 
By Melissa Hancock
She may have just sold her flooring company Flowcrete for £35m but it hasn’t been a smooth ride to success for Dawn Gibbins. And given the current economic climate – she says now is the time, more than ever, to focus on reducing your variable costs.

Manufacturing magnate Dawn Gibbins challenges James Caan
By Melissa Hancock
James Caan’s recent remark that the UK can kiss manufacturing goodbye has raised hackles. Dawn Gibbins, who has just sold her flooring company Flowcrete for £35m, is the latest to pour scorn on the dragon: “I challenge him on this because I think women will revive manufacturing in the UK.”

Out of Pfizer and into the frying-pan
By Carryn Dewing
Letizia Tufari thought she was living the dream. She’d completed her business degree from Warwick University, she had a high-flying job at Pfizer and was well on her way to realising her dream of being sales director of a major blue-chip. So how did she find herself at the helm of mother-daughter start-up Venturi’s Table?

On the hop: brewery firm goes global
By Kate Pritchard
Sink a pint for Connie Parry, chief executive and FD of Hurns – the largest independent producer and distributor of beer in South Wales. Parry and her brother Philip are turning the Swansea-based family firm into an international brand.

Meet Britain's most pioneering business women
By Real Business
Glenys Berd, the entrepreneur who brought Britain Masai Barefoot Technology shoes; top interior designer Kelly Hoppen; and the creator of the "BratNav" child-tracking system - these are just some of the remarkable women featured on the shortlists of the 2008 First Women Awards.

Anna Venturi: mama entrepreneur has the recipe for success
By Carryn Dewing
Anna Venturi started running cookery classes for 'ladies who lunch' from her own kitchen in Buckinghamshire in 1993. Since then, however, she’s written a book, appeared on TV and, alongside her daughter Letizia, is the founder of Venturi’s Table.

Sweet success for Danish entrepreneur
By Kate Pritchard
Lise Madsen left her home in rural Denmark at the age of 16 to train as a pastry chef. Now the mother-of-two runs a London-based cakes company and has cut a deal with Waitrose that will double turnover.

Shopping channel tycoon
By Melissa Hancock
Meet Asian entrepreneur Hasfa Abubacker, the first – and youngest – woman to own a shopping channel in the UK.

Becoming a credible alternative
By Catherine Woods
Jay O’Connor was 26 years old and full of “energy and youthful arrogance” when she founded her first PR company, Fuse PR, in 1998.