Bio

I am an entrepreneur and technology strategist with a background in marketing. In 2002 I co-founded the boutique hotel travel specialists Mr & Mrs Smith with my husband James, and spent over 15 years evolving the company’s digital infrastructure as CTO. In March 2019, I became COO, and now coordinate the strategic growth of our business following our successful crowdfunding investment round in 2018. Today, Smith operates from offices in London, New York, LA and Singapore, and has more than 1.5 million members worldwide. James and I were awarded MBEs for services to the British travel industry in 2014. I frequently speak on the subjects of digital innovation, leadership, women in technology and business, and balancing parenting with career progression, and have delivered keynotes for KPMG, the ABTA Travel Conference and L’Oreal Professional Portfolio Congress, Sardinia; appeared at events such as HSBC’s Inspirational Women; Google Luxury – Personalisation at Scale; ‘Up Close With…’ at the Upper House, Hong Kong; and spoken on Women in Business for Baker & McKenzie and Entrepreneurial Leadership for the London Business School TELL Series. I act as a mentor for a number of start-up enterprises, including handwritten-marketing network Inkpact, and am a non-exec director of Not on the High Street (notonthehighstreet.com).