Inspiring Lessons From Red’s Woman Of The Year 2014 Chloe Macintosh

Chloe Macintosh has been an architect, a creative director, and Red’s Woman of the Year 2014, and an inspiration. One of the four co-founders of Made.com, she helped build a technology company in the last five years that’s completely shaken up the furniture industry, and had a turnover of £43m (approximately $65m) in 2015. Although she stepped down from her Creative Director role last year, she remains an investor and brand ambassador to Made.com and a Career Girl Daily hero. Here are our favourite lessons from Chloe Macintosh…

Trust your gut

When the four co-founders of Made.com launched the business, they had to listen to many nay-sayers. People thought that working directly with factories to provide discounts was a model that simply wouldn’t work. But Macintosh and her co-founders didn’t listen to the negative chatter, saying “Everyone within the industry said it wouldn’t work…but when an industry says something is impossible, that’s when you know the opportunity is there.” Trusting your instincts even when others doubt them is essential for any career girl!

Take risks

When Macintosh made the decision to leave her job as an associate at an architecture firm, she was two month’s pregnant. She had coffee with a friend of a friend, Brent Hoberman (co-founder of Lastminute.com) and hadn’t expected to get a job out of it. Taking the plunge for a career change from something stable to the unknown was scary, but as Macintosh puts it, “You don’t have to do the same thing your whole life. Changing careers is a very positive move.” Moving from architecture into tech was a big move, but Macintosh thrived within it!

Dive in

One of the largest challenges Macintosh faced was moving into the tech industry without any training or job experience in it. But she worked hard to get up to scratch, claiming that “Succeeding is not all about prior skill, it’s around taking the opportunities.” Take opportunities as they come, and rise to the occasion when you do!

Consult experts

In her interviews, Macintosh seems very open about how much she has learned from others: she lists her favourite business book as The Hard Thing About Hard Things “because we need to celebrate failure as well as success!” and is currently reading Thrive by Arianna Huffington. She lives the advice she gives to career girls: “Stay passionate: Be true to your idea but seek the input of people in the know.”

Need more hits of inspiring women? How about Vivienne Westwood or seriously amazing Shiza Shahid?

Featured image: CityAM