Earning 23 per cent of all votes, Rowling beat a high profile field of business personalities, including online shopping entrepreneurs and creators of notonthehighstreet.com Holly Tucker and Sophie Cornish (voted by 16 per cent) and The Body Shop founder Anita Roddick (16 per cent).
Other female leaders who also received recognition were Martha Lane Fox CBE, member of the House of Lords and former UK Digital Champion who co-founded lastminute.com and (14 per cent) and football managing director and TV personality Karen Brady (12 per cent).
The research was conducted to celebrate International Womens Day (8th March) which is a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future, with 400 events scheduled across the United Kingdom.
Laura Hughes, Accountancy Training Manager at Crunch Accounting, said: We conducted the research to understand which high profile women are setting the best example and inspiring the business community.
The results have been really interesting. Women from across the digital and creative industries received far more votes than the corporate heavyweights, like Santander CEO Ana Patricia Botn. Above all, however, the results remind us of the diverse and varied range of female business personalities that the UK has to offer.
Ranking order of most inspiring female businesswoman are below:
- JK Rowling, author
- Holly Tucker and Sophie Cornish, founders of notonthehighstreet.com
- Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop
- Martha Lane Fox, founder of lastminute.com
- Karen Brady
- Justine Roberts, co-founder of Mumsnet
- Juliet Davenport, Chief Executive of The Good Energy Group
- Victoria Beckham, global fashion entrepreneur
- Carolyn McCall, chief executive of easyJet
- Ana Patricia Botn, CEO, Santander UK
- Christine Hodgson, executive chairman, capgemini
- Liv Garfield, CEO Severn Trent
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