Deborah Meaden (born 11 February 1959) is a British business woman who ran a multi-million pound Family Holiday Business, before completing a management buyout. She is best known for her appearances on the BBC Two programme Dragons' Den, where she has agreed investments in the Den of £1,550,000 in 24 businesses over the 6 series in which she has taken part to date.
Meaden was born in Somerset. Her parents divorced when she was young and her mother moved Deborah and her elder sister Gail to Essex. After her mother remarried, she had two more daughters (Cass and Emma) with Brian, the man Meaden calls Dad. Meaden went to the Godolphin School, Salisbury,for a brief period and then to Trowbridge High School,
On leaving school when she was 16, Meaden studied business at Brighton Technical College, after which she worked as a sales-room model in a fashion house. After graduation, she moved to Italy at 19 and set up a glass and ceramics export agency, which sold products to high-end retailers including Harvey Nichols. The company failed after just 18 months.
Meaden and a partner bought one of the first Stefanel textile franchises in the UK, which was based in the West Country; she sold out two years later to her partner for £10,000. She then had several successful Leisure and retail businesses including a spell operating a Prize Bingo at Butlins in Minehead.
In 1988 she joined the Family Business to run its Amusement Arcade operations and in 1992 joined Weststar Holidays, The Family Holiday Park Operator Based in Exeter, Devon but with its major sites based in the South West. in 1999 she led a Management buyout and acquired the Majority shareholding. By the time she sold the Company 6 years later the Weststar was providing holidays for more than 150,000 people each year. In 2005 she made a partial exit when Weststar was sold in a deal worth £33 million to Phoenix Equity Partners, and in August 2007 her remaining stake in Weststar Holidays was liquidated when the firm was sold to Alchemy Partners for £83m, valuing her stake at about £19m.
In 2009, Meaden acquired Fox Brothers, the West Country textile mill established in 1772 and still based in Wellington, Somerset along with fellow shareholder, Douglas Cordeaux who is also design director at Pepe Jeans London. She was also involved in a collaboration with award winning BBC conductor Charles Hazlewood, 'Play the Field', a weekend of classical music on Charles's farm in Somerset over the August bank holiday weekend 2009.
Meaden is most famous for her appearance as a "dragon" on the BBC Two programme Dragons' Den. She took over from Rachel Elnaugh in Series 3 of the show, which commenced on August 3, 2006. Like Elnaugh who preceded her, Meaden is the only female "dragon" on the programme. So far in the Den she has agreed investments in 24 businesses to the value of £1,550,000. Only Peter Jones and Theo Paphitis have invested more than Deborah, although they have been on the show for longer. She has been the target of television review comedy snipes, such as Harry Hill's TV Burp and Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe for her prevalence as the lone female, and because of her harsh demeanour towards contestants. Despite this image portrayal, however, Meaden remains assertive and simply states in her defence, "I can't stand bullshit'". Deborah is known for constantly stating: "You are insulting my intelligence; I'm out!" and by abruptly raising her hand to dramatically finalise where she stands upon that pitch in the Den.
Other TV work
Deborah appeared as a mentor in the BBC2 series The Speaker in April 2009 offering her advice on speaking with conviction.
In January 2010, Meaden appeared alongside her Dragon's Den co-stars Duncan Bannatyne and Peter Jones in the fifth episode of the sixth series of Hustle.
Meaden appeared in series 4 of the BBC panel show Would I Lie To You?
Meaden met her husband Paul in summer 1985 while he worked at Weststar during his university break. She didn't want a family and thus they separated, but after she took a trip to Venezuela, she returned to London and they married in 1993. The couple have no children, and live on a restored model farm in Somerset with numerous animals. The couple also have a home in Primrose Hill, London.
In November 2009, Meaden featured in a short film to promote Somerset to businesses, commissioned by Into Somerset, having previously recorded two other short films for the inward investment agency in February 2009.
In 2009 a planning inspector criticised Meaden's evidence to his enquiry as "implausible" in a dispute over the granting of village green status to a field on which Mudstone LLP, a firm in which she is a partner, wished to build 48 homes. Other evidence given to the enquiry by Meaden was described as "too far-fetched to be credible".
In July 2010, Deborah Meaden was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Exeter Business School.She also received an honorary degree from Staffordshire University in the same month.
