Sandra Steele, Educational Consultant

The Body Shop Founder to Speak October 24

Friday, October 20, 2006

Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop and Dame Commander of the British Empire, will be the guest speaker in the next University of Evansville International Speaker Series event, Tuesday, Oct. 24, at 7 p.m. at the Victory Theatre in downtown Evansville.

Roddick will speak about "My Entrepreneurial Journey: Business as Unusual" and share a vision that grew from a single store in Brighton, England, in 1978 to stores across the globe in 50 countries. Her beliefs about entrepreneurial businesses, and the people who run them will also be discussed.

Roddick says it is impossible to separate the company values from the issues that she cares passionately about – social responsibility, respect for human rights, the environment and animal protection, and an absolute belief in community trade.

"The new entrepreneur is a social change agent more than he or she is a business person. To the new entrepreneur, making a difference is more important then making a fortune. They are following a 'calling' and not just a career – and they are doing it with passion," she said. "In truth, there is no choice, it goes with the DNA of being a new entrepreneur."

Roddick began her naturally-based cosmetics company in 1976 simply to create a livelihood for herself and her two daughters while her husband was away. She had no training or experience. Now, 28 years later, The Body Shop has 1,980 stores serving more than 77 million customers, in 25 different languages, across 12 time zones.

The Body Shop is no longer a one-woman-show – it's a global operation with thousands of people working towards common goals and sharing common values. "That’s what gives The Body Shop its campaigning and commercial strength and continues to set it apart from mainstream business," Roddick says.

It wasn't only economic necessity that inspired the birth of The Body Shop. After an educational journey through Israel, she earned a wealth of experience. Dame Roddick had spent time in farming and fishing communities with pre-industrial peoples and had been exposed to body rituals of women from all over the world. Also, the frugality that her mother exercised during the war years made her question retail conventions. Why waste a container when you can refill it? And why buy more of something than you can use? Taking a cue from her mother, Anita reused and recycled everything she could. The foundation of The Body Shop's environmental activism was born out of ideas like these.

The Body Shop has always been recognizable by its green color, the only color that she could find to cover the damp, moldy walls of her first shop. She opened a second shop within six months, by which time her husband was back in England. He came up with the idea for 'self-financing' more new stores, which sparked the growth of the franchise network through which The Body Shop spread across the world. The company went public in 1984.

Dame Roddick believes that businesses have the power to do good. That's why the Mission Statement of The Body Shop opens with the overriding commitment, "To dedicate our business to the pursuit of social and environmental change." In 1997 Dame Roddick helped launch The New Academy of Business, a Masters course at Bath University, with the aim of reforming business education for the new century. Dame Roddick has earned honorary degrees from nine different schools and has been presented with dozens of business, communication and human rights awards, including knighthood, the distinction of DBE (Dame Commander of the British Empire).

In 2000, Dame Roddick published her autobiography Business As Unusual and in 2001, she edited Take It Personally, a collection of provoking through piece to challenge the myths of globalization and the power of the WTO. The excitement and success of these books prompted her to start her own communications company, Anita Roddick Publications, to advance and celebrate human rights, the environment and creative dissent. On a mission to manufacture "weapons of mass instruction," Brave Hearts, Rebel Spirits: A Spiritual Activist's Handbook and A Revolution in Kindness were published in 2003.

Roddick's lecture through the University's International Speaker Series is sponsored by the University, American General Financial Services, Fifth Third Bank, and the Evansville Courier & Press.