66. From miniskirts to stem cell therapy: How a fashion leader is changing heart failure treatment | Jenifer Rosenberg OBE

Welcome to All About Business with me, James Reid, the podcast that covers everything about business, management, and leadership. Every episode, I sit down with different guests who bootstrap companies, masterminded investment models, or built a business empire. They're leaders in their field, and they're here to give you top insights and actionable advice so that you can apply their ideas to your own career or business venture. From the swinging 60s fashion rails to the front line of cutting edge medical research, today's guest has reinvented herself more than once. I'm joined by Jennifer Rosenberg, OBE, entrepreneur, former fashion manufacturer for some of the UK's best known retailers and founder of the Heart Sells Foundation. We'll dive into resilience, reinvention and what it takes to turn hard moments into meaningful impact for thousands of people. Well, today on All About Business, I couldn't be more delighted than to welcome Jennifer Rosenberg, who has had three amazing careers, and we're going to talk a little about each of them. Jennifer, you started out at Marks & Spencers and was promoted on numerous occasions to a very senior role there earlier in your career. Then you started your own business, J&J Fashions. That's right. Which became the largest privately owned ladies' wear manufacturer in the country, employing thousands of people. And then you started the Heart Cells Foundation, which is pioneering really exciting new research to help people with heart disease and heart conditions. And I want to talk to you about that as well. But firstly, welcome. Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting me, James. It's a real pleasure to see you. Thank you for coming in. Let's go back to the beginning and those swinging 60s, because I believe that you were the person with your team who introduced the mini skirt to Marks and Spencers, no less. That's right. What happened? Well, that's what I started in M&S in the post room. So I really started at the bottom, pushing a post trolley around, delivering the mail. But I didn't intend to stay there. And after various meetings with staff management and everything, I found myself in the skirt department. I was very happy to be in the skirt department. But at that time, I wasn't the senior buyer of the skirt department. I was very junior. But I could see what was happening in London. This was the beginning of the 60s. It was every day there was something new that was happening in the scene. And Mary Quant developed something called the miniskirt. And prior to that, we'd been wearing skirts down to our calves, our ankles. And suddenly this amazing designer called Mary Quant and this wonderful model called Twiggy was walking around London in these miniskirts. And I felt, well, we've got to have this. So I bought one for myself. And fortunately, I've got good legs. So that was OK. that went down very well and i made a presentation to the board and i said to them we have to try this look this is what's happening on the high street and they ummed and they are and i put it up against myself and because i'm quite short it didn't look because i'm sure sorry to interrupt you at this point just to help me visualize this was the board all male yeah so you were presenting all men there were no women on no women at all and they were probably all of a certain age so definitely definitely and they had a reputation for being quite staid yes but they were staid But they were involved. They were involved. They were very much into merchandise. They really would feel the fabric, look at the fabric. And they also had an amazing way of communicating with us. They were brilliant. So they'd walk in and they'd say, what's new? So I immediately got hold of my sample of this miniskirt. And I said, sir, I feel we should be trying this. This is what's happening on the high street. Then I put it up against myself and it didn't look that short. Why is that, Jennifer? Because I'm short. because of course you are so they look quite long on you they look quite reasonable on me so in fact it was teddy see for the time he was the chairman he's a famous retailer absolutely and he said well and they used to call you by your maiden name so my name was levine so he said well miss levine okay well if you think we should try it let's try it so we'll try we worked in dozens in those days so we'll try 50 dozen which was nothing for them when they were buying and of course we we made them put them out and they just walked off the counter within a day i mean it was 50 dozen i like that well we always worked in dozens there which is like 600 for everyone else for pre-decimalization um even after decimalization we worked in dozens always in i wonder why that was i don't know just tradition just tradition absolutely it was a very it was a very traditional firm but they had vision and that was so important and they realized that what was happening in the high street in the sixes was changing ladies fashion in fact it was changing everything it was changing the music business it was changing hair you had vidal who created that amazing cut that um mary quant had and twiggy had i mean the whole scene was changing even reed employment began in 1960 here we go 7th of may 1960 so it's a brilliant time your father had great vision and knew this was the time to start. Well, it was a time for new ideas, wasn't it? Exactly. Everybody was thirsty and hungry for new ideas. And he was definitely an ideas guy. So you found yourself in this amazing business where they were open-minded to new ideas. Very open-minded. So open-minded. And you were able to present what you thought. I mean, I always remember when I bought for myself, there was a wonderful boutique of stores called Coronel, and they bought beautiful merchandise from Paris. And I bought from there a velvet blazer, a brown velvet blazer. And I remember it like it was yesterday. And again, I brought it in and I showed it to my director at the time, which again was Teddy Seed. And I said, sir, I feel this is something we should try. And he looked at it and he said, Miss Levine, velvet's only for the evening. I said, no, it's moving forward now and people are going to be wearing velvet blazers during the day. well then try it but this time because it was such an expensive garment we could only try it try 25 dozen got them in again eminence made velvet blazers for the next 10 years they never stopped it became a fashion item that every woman wanted to have what colors were they black and brown it's just those two colors it's like it's like henry ford with his car you can have any color as long as it's black but i'm picking up that you called him sir yes and he called you miss levine i mean so the business environment has changed so much totally totally i mean i mean this is interesting perspective but i find it strange when i maybe call somebody up and they immediately call me by my first name because that isn't how we grew up no but that's the way the world is today it's very different but marx and spencer then was i mean it's still a very successful and very good business but then it was sort of undisputed leader undisputed leader of the high street what qualities made it that do you think because we had to quality was terribly important quality quality all the all the factories that manufactured for mns had to be of a certain standard they couldn't be like um sweatshops they just couldn't they had to be had proper facilities of this mns insisted on having the right facilities for their staff they had canteens in all their shops so girls could have breakfast or lunch and they insisted that the manufacturers had the same facilities they had to be clean they had to have canteens for the girls to have lunch and if you smoked in those days people smoked you um had a smoking room right so they were ahead of their time way ahead of their time was most of the manufacturing done in britain then at that time everything was done in britain on their label all the sourcing everything maybe not the fabric brick but every i would say 100 of actual manufacturing was done in the uk so that's totally changed totally changed now totally changed yeah um it's a totally different world i mean you buy something you buy i don't know a skirt or a bra and it's made in bangladesh or it's made in pala lupa wherever right and you don't know what the conditions are in those factories well they are they're sweatshops you remember that terrible i think it was it was either the Bangladesh or Pakistan, where they had that terrible fire. Yes, I do. And a lot of people were killed. I mean, those factory conditions were appalling. So it's interesting. So why do you think that those standards that were so successful then were allowed to fall away? Well, they haven't fallen away in the UK. It's because people have gone overseas. Well, that's what's happened, isn't it? I mean, people in the UK are happy to buy things from these places. Well, I will tell you a funny little story. before going into the skirt department I was in the accessory department and I was very junior then and we were buying Chanel crocheted berets from Italy these Chanel berets were all handmade by artisans living all around Florence but they would come to a central point where they would be collected so I went to this central point which was a factory to check these berets out and each worker had been given a shape which they had to make these hand crochet berries to. Anyway being a lady I suddenly decided I need to go to the lavatory so I said oh you know where can I go and there was a lot of hissing and talking behind hands and everything and suddenly the next thing I found myself in a car being taken to somebody's home to use the facilities because all they had in the factory was a hole in the floor. So I thought this was terribly funny. So when I went back and I told my boss, you know, this story about what has happened, he was horrified. And the manufacturer's agent was called in and said, unless they put proper facilities in that factory, they're canceling all the contracts. And that's how they operated because they felt that you shouldn't have, You should have proper facilities everywhere. Yeah. And their high standards really created the amazing business that they had and the quality of the merchandise that they made. Yeah, so it's a real message around focusing on quality. Quality was second to none. And treating people properly. And treating people. And I always remember another instance, again, with Teddy Sieve. There's something with tweeds. Again, tweeds were manufactured in various countries. And we used to buy a lot of them. But there's a fabric called Bull's Wall, which is where the offcuts of the fabric was made. And it was cheaper. It felt very coarse. He would always feel a skirt and say, this can't be Bull's Wall because we're not buying it. And they had their own quality control in the building. They had their own team of quality control people. They had their own laboratories. They were way, way ahead. read.co.uk is giving away 1 million free job listings to employers across the UK. Whether you're filling dozens of roles over the next few months or looking for your next team member right now, read.co.uk can find them for free. No catch, no long-term commitments, just more businesses being able to find their perfect hire. Act quickly. These listings aren't free forever. visit read.co.uk forward slash million job giveaway today and be part of one million opportunities to love mondays so teddy see if i mean you've mentioned him several times because he was my boss he was your boss but i mean he for younger listeners was very famous very retailer entrepreneur businessman in the 20th century what did you learn from your boss what would be carried forward into this year was first of all i think he was a wonderful communicator You know, he was the chairman of this public company. And I was a kid in my 20s. He knew exactly who I was. He would come in. He would have a conversation with me. He would communicate with me. And I think that was an amazing, amazing way to operate. And all the senior board operated like that. They would go down to Marble Arch, talk to the customers, see what was happening, what was selling, come back. And they knew that business inside out. so they were very keen to talk to people who were absolutely on the shop floor for customer facing and learn from and they would make a point of talking to the sales assistants because the sales assistant would know more than anybody else what the customer wants yes i mean and they they regarded everybody as being important you know from the from the shop assistant to the buyer to the senior buyer, they treated us all equally. Very good. That's a very important message. You started out, you said, in the post room. So I suppose that was a good way to get to know everyone because you were delivering the mail. No, I got to know everybody. I didn't stay in the post room very long. I was only there two weeks. But after that, I went into the accounts department. That's where I got to know everybody because in those days you had things like cheques. Right. And the cheques had to have two signatures. So every cheque had to have the company secretary signature on Mr Goldberg I remember him like it was yesterday And then I was given the job because I was young and cute I was given the job of them finding directors to get the second signature on. Well, I didn't find them. They'd phone around. And there were various members of the board, like the Sackers and the Laskers. And they were mature gentlemen. and they were very happy when I came in to have a conversation. They didn't have much to do other than sign the checks, have a cup of coffee. So I got to know them all. So I would say that I learned about more people in the accounts department than I did in the post room. So at this point about making time to talk to people, it feels like in many businesses that's been lost. I think it is being lost because you've got all this technology today. People are texting, they're sending emails, they're losing the art of communication. I have a little saying, I always say to myself, it pays to talk. And I think it's so important to pick up the phone and have a conversation with somebody rather than keep sending texts and emails. It pays to talk. It pays to talk. My version of that is talk before you type. Oh, OK. Because I agree. There we are. We're on the same wavelength, James, you and I. I think you're more likely to get things done if you talk to someone. Absolutely. I agree with you. I couldn't agree with you more because an email is very black and white and it can be dangerous. Whereas when you have a conversation, you can just, if you can feel there's a situation developing, you can diffuse it. Yes. So how many years were you at Marks & Spencer? I was at Marks & Spencer for 14 years. And then you branched out on your own, which is exciting. So this is career number two. So I left career number one where I was flying high. I was really... So what was your last job there before you? My last job was in ladies' separates. And separates had grown. I started off with a small skirt range. But from there, we developed a trouser range. They didn't have trousers. Then we developed jackets. And the whole thing grew. It was like... It was growing at such a fast rate. We didn't quite realize how big it was. It was enormous. And it was quite funny with trousers because we developed these fit and flare trousers. And we couldn't get enough production. so again when the board would go around to different manufacturers anyone that had hoffman press suddenly became a trouser manufacturer overnight we were pulling in production from everywhere was a hoffman press oh a hoffman press right um it's a big it's two pads and you just clamp it down and it steams and presses so you put a trouser leg under it and you get the crease oh i see but you use it for other things as well you don't only use it for trousers you can use it for but it's that it's all been modernized now i shouldn't think any industry uses the hoffman press today that's why i wanted to make sure i knew what it was so so in 1974 you left and you started your own business i started my own manufacturing business called jnj fashions supplying who else but marx and spencer so you had left on good terms obviously i left on very good terms in fact they gave me a golden handshake which was very nice in fact i actually left on the Christmas of 73 and we opened our doors to our factory January 74 which you're far too young to remember but that was the days of Edward Heath and Harold Wilson and we had a three day week. No I do remember that actually yeah I do remember yeah that wasn't a great time probably to start a business. It was a terrible time to start a business you could only work for three days a week so how did you deal with that i mean what happened well what happened was my husband was also a very large manufacturer to m&s and he had a factory nearby that had a generator so he would use the generator for the two days that that he wasn't working then i would borrow the generator for the two days that we weren't working oh so it was on a truck on the truck so what did you make My first contract was ladies' trousers. Ladies' trousers. Yeah. So describe them. What did they look like? If I say fit and flare, would that mean... Flared trousers. Flared trousers. 1974, yeah, I'm thinking flared trousers. Yeah, flared trousers. What material? Crimpling. Crimpling. Crimpling crepe. And people loved these, I imagine. They loved these trousers. And the fastest colours were navy and black. Right. So this was sort of something people would wear daily. Absolutely. Trousers were coming into people's wardrobes. They were new. Because women didn't wear trousers. Well, women didn't wear trousers. So you've revolutionized women's fashion. Well, I always remember when we were at M&S, going back to M&S, and again, Teddy Seaf came in and he said, and trousers were selling incredibly well. He said, well, why are you girls not wearing trousers? I said, well, we're not allowed to, sir. He said, well, from today on, you are allowed to wear them. I want to see you all in trousers. That's good. So that's when, that would have been, I suppose, about 1970, 71. and we were allowed to wear trousers. So that gave you an idea this was something that might be happening everywhere. And then you grew that business and you ended up with several factories. We finished up in the end with 12 factories. We started our first factory in the northeast in Wallsend and we grew, we finished up with about eight factories there. We were in Sunderland, Blythe, along the whole coast. So Newcastle was your base. Newcastle was our base. Right. And then we then branched into Yorkshire. So what made you successful? I mean, because you became, I think, Businesswoman of the Year. I did. That smart champagne brand. Absolutely. Gave you the accolade. And I still get my champagne every year on my birthday. Oh, they still send it to you? Oh, yes. Oh, credit to them for that. So you were obviously very successful in this period. Well, it was a very exciting time, again, because the 70s was a very prosperous time in the UK. and you know I had a wonderful relationship with Marks and Spencer and I was able to develop that relationship from being a buyer there knowing what the marketplace wanted to becoming a manufacturer. So what you've just described is an interesting opportunity I think for many people is to become a supplier to your current company you know if you're working somewhere what might be helpful to your current employer that you might be able to supply to them because when my father started this business in 1960 he recruited for Gillette for instance which is where he used to work oh right well there you are he also left on very good terms so it's a very similar scenario yeah if you can leave on good terms and become a supplier to a company you work for that's maybe a good way to get going because they also value it because they know that you know what they want and how they operate and therefore you know their standards i'll tell you a funny story with my first factory so I'm not going there and it's all got it's a warehouse on an industrial site at Wolves End so it's got to be painted so I did a color board I got my colors sorted out and I with the builder and I decided the walls are going to be this color and when I go up there they're not the same color they were a bright white and I wanted like a cream so he said to me but it so I said well it's wrong he said well it doesn't matter it's only a factory I said it may only be a factory to you but it's my factory and i want the colors the way i chose them so can you please change this color i don't think anyone had ever spoken to him like that before but the colors were changed absolutely because bright if you're looking at bright white walls it's very bad on your eyes you want something softer much softer because you've got the bright lights on all the time yeah so yes how many people worked in that factory when in the beginning or the oh in the I suppose we started off with one line. Because when you're in production, you have lines of machines. So we started off with one line and gradually we built it up. And I suppose we probably finished up with about 100 in that factory. So what made you open separate factories rather than just get a bigger factory? Well, first of all, it was the space. I mean, factories take up a lot of room because you've got to have a machine and then you've got to have your pressing units at the bottom and your packing. it's a lot of footage required to manufacture garments it's not like you're manufacturing cans of soup you need a lot more room a lot of room so you need a lot of room for one way a lot of space a lot of space and it was better i mean if you get too big it's much more difficult to control than if you've got a system where say you've got eight or ten lines in a factory you have a supervisor on each line you have the merchandise being made in sections through the line and then it comes to the bottom it gets pressed it gets packed we just found that was a better way for most of the factories were that similar sizes actually if i think about around 100 people yeah about 100 people some were more we had some more yeah yeah so what other what other items did you make well we finished up making everything in ladies where we made dresses skirts obviously had to make skirts trousers leisure wear um blouses so all ladies all ladies out with no knitwear we never touched knitwear right um we never touched men's wear but we covered all and we didn't touch coats we didn't touch coats but we did everything else so you you built this business up over an almost 20 year period and then sold it i believe very successfully in 1992 That's right. Why did you sell it? Or what was your strategy around that? Our strategy was that we'd grown our business. My husband had done a couple of takeovers as well because it was very difficult to grow organically. So we took over two other companies. And at the end of the day, we made an offer we couldn't refuse. We had a very successful ladies' wear clothing business. We were very design-orientated. We were making merchandise that was selling incredibly well. So we had something. We were innovators. Therefore, we had something that was very attractive to our competitors. Right. So who bought the business? A company called Claremont, who were a public company. But they, you know, to have a design is a very expensive part of a business because you have to employ designers and you have to travel. It's not, it's not in it. You have to invest a lot of money to have good design, which we did. And they were much more into big production. They wanted to cut costs, so they cut the design element down. So they cut the innovation out of the business. And when things get difficult, if you haven't got new merchandise coming through, you suffer. So after they bought your business, they did that. Three years after they bought our business, they went bust. Really? Yeah. So that must have been sad for you. It was sad. But, you know, my husband said to me, love me, you don't love your business. So, I mean, I walked away. That's easy to say, hard to do, probably. Well, you know, I'd been in the business. I had the business now 20 years. I was very happy to walk away. Yeah. I mean, I'd done an awful lot in that time. You know, since I'd left school and worked for Marks & Spencer, then I'd run a business and I was quite happy you know this offer came along it was a very good offer so I was happy to walk away it's of course I was sad when they messed the business up but equally you know they I knew they were going to mess it up because if you don't invest in design you're in trouble well what you just said about innovation is so important to any business any business if you're not innovating you become irrelevant I mean I always remember when we bought this leisure wear factory and suddenly you know because i i remember the start of leisure wear of leggings and it all you know all happening and we took into mns um a pair of leopard skin leggings and they looked at them in shock and horror whatever again we we did a trial now i'm on the other side i'm the manufacturer doing the trial well we started a trial originally of 100 dozen fine we sold in that one season six thousand dozen pairs of these leggings you can imagine how profitable that was for both of us yes yes so so you were still innovating right oh very much that's how the business grew of course our business grew from being one line in a factory in newcastle to employing 3 000 people because we innovated and i was very good at innovating as was my husband he was brilliant on fabrics and textiles and between us we were an amazing team when you say i was very good at innovating what what made you very good at innovating what how do you think about innovation how do you go about it used to go to america about three or four times a year as a supplier to look at the shops because the americans were brilliant at taking high couture fashion and making it very commercial and we'd pick up and buy merchandise and copy it just have a look have a Look, absolutely. And we picked, I mean, I have a very good eye for seeing what's going to sell. So being out there, really looking at what's available, what's going on. Absolutely. So important And America in that time in the 70s and 80s were the forerunners Their stores were wonderful They had amazing merchandise So we copied. Yeah. Well, we've had other guests on the podcast who've done very well in business saying exactly that. I mean, we've sued a few times. But anyway, you always settled. Sued a few times. That was a part of the cost of doing business. Look, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, it was, so as I say, you have to innovate. As you say, today you have to innovate. I mean, look at Steve Jobs at Apple. Yes. It didn't do so well when he wasn't there. No, when he came back. I mean, it's an amazing company. Certainly is. So what do you think about these days? Very few companies manufacture clothing in Britain. What's changed? Why is that? Because it was cost. I mean, at the tail end, before we sold out, we were manufacturing abroad as well. So we still had our big factory place in the UK, but we'd gone to Portugal, where we were manufacturing denim dresses. We'd gone to Morocco and we'd gone to Hong Kong. Right. And you were doing that because it was becoming more and more expensive. Because it was more and more. And also, if you wanted a garment that had a lot of work content in it, we couldn't afford it in our own factories because we couldn't pass that on to the retailer. So that was because of labour costs primarily, was it? So it became more and more expensive to employ people and the customers wouldn't entertain paying more for the product? No, well, the client wouldn't. Yeah, your customer wouldn't entertain paying. Your customer being the retailer in this case. The retailer. And also other manufacturers are going abroad as well. Therefore, we had to compete with them. So this was a trend that you had to go with because if you didn't, you'd go out of business. Absolutely. So that was sort of globalisation occurring, I suppose. Exactly. And that was another reason. It was a perfect time to sell out. Right. Because I know that manufacturers spend their life chasing, going from one country to another to find the cheapest production. So you sort of saw the writing on the wall. We saw the writing on the wall. I saw the writing on the wall. So then, coming to your third career. My third career. Third amazing career, I want to say, because it is amazing. You took a complete pivot and did something different. What happened and why did you do that? Well, there's always a reason that things happen. I mean, my husband, we were enjoying retirement. We were traveling. We were doing lots of wonderful things. And life was good. Sadly, my husband developed a heart condition. He developed something called heart failure. And we went to see his cardiologist who really gave him weeks to live. It was as black and white as that. Sorry, just to interrupt you with that. What is heart failure? Heart failure is when it can occur three different ways. It can occur if you have a heart attack. It can occur if you have something called cardiomyelopathy. Or it can occur for no reason. And it's when the heart is a muscle. So when you have heart failure, the heart becomes enlarged. And it can either be a heart attack or one of the other issues that can cause it. A virus can cause it. So therefore, when the heart becomes enlarged, it can't pump as well as it did before it was enlarged. Therefore, the body builds up fluid. And that's what heart failure is, where you get fluid building up in your lungs. You find people with heart failure have swollen legs. You become very breathless. You can't walk upstairs. it's very very debilitating right and he's sort of developed this condition my husband developed this condition and um the only treatment other than a heart transplant is medication and that just it helps but it does certainly doesn't cure right so you were in this situation in this situation what did you do well we went to see my husband's cardiologist and um he said you know he gave us the bad news that things were very grim but he said he had recently been to a presentation given at bart's hospital by a young cardiologist called dr anthony mather who presented a paper on something that was called stem cell therapy and this treatment was happening in germany in frankfurt where they were taking a patient's own stem cells and injecting them back into their heart so sorry to keep asking to explain things what is a stem cell oh right i i'm not i must explain to anybody listening i'm not a medical person no no but just a heads up what is it just as opposed to any other cell yeah the whole body is full of stem cells and you've got millions of stem cells in your body you've got them in your blood you've got them in your bone and you've got them in your muscle. So that's what stem cells are. Your body is full of them. And this science that they were talking about in Germany, where they were taking, extracting stem cells from the patient's body, and with heart failure, they'd worked out that the best place to take stem cells from was from the bone, from the bone marrow. And they would then treat these stem cells in the laboratory, clean them and infuse them and then inject them back into the patient's damaged heart and they had scientific proof that by injecting them back into the damaged heart it started to regenerate that damaged heart that sounds amazing so they were literally injecting the heart with stem cells yes yes and these were stem cells that have been harvested yes and they were their own but they They were the person's own stem cells. Right. And this was new science. Brand new. Nobody, like you, I didn't know what stem cells were either. I mean, none of us knew. We'd never heard of them. Right. It was so new. We're talking now about 2003. So we're talking about 23 years ago. So this cardiologist back in 2003 at St. Bart's Hospital here in London shared this information. But then you, as I understand, went to Germany. Well, he told us it was happening in Germany. Right. And Ian, my husband, no wasn't in his vocabulary at all. He never understood what the word no was. So he said, well, we've got to go. So Angie said, okay. So he said, I want to go tomorrow. Anyway, by the next week, we all went. Anthony Mather came with us. We all were on a plane to Germany, to Frankfurt. My husband had the treatment. Right. And how long did that take? The treatment itself, he was in hospital for two days. that's all right and what was the result result was amazing when we came home prior to going to germany he hadn't been able to walk up the stairs because stairs are one of the big testing things when you have heart failure within about two weeks he was walking up the stairs it was a miracle it was like a light switch going on it was unbelievable so then based on this amazing result you decided to set up a charity? Well, it was Ian, really. He was so incensed that, because we were with Anthony, when you travel with somebody, you spend a lot of time and you have conversations and it evolved that there was no money in the UK going for this research. Right. And Ian was appalled. He thought it was terrible that, you know, it was such an amazing thing that had happened to him that there was no money for pioneering this treatment in the UK. So he said to Anthony, how much do you need to start start this trial here in the uk so and i think he was being quite flippant actually he said oh i need about six million so this is 2003's for so ian said i'll get it for you and he did so he raised six million and set up a charity to do this he set up the charity first and then we raised the money and the charity is called the heart sales foundation the heart sales foundation yes that was founded by you and ian that's right initially raised six million for this research yeah and when so that went to some bar the treatment was happening at some bars yes but we say we have the most amazing relationship with some bartholomew's hospital because we're a charity funding this treatment we've been doing it we've been working with them now for 21 years and we don't put the money into a pool that gets just spread around we're only paying for what they are treating. We pay for the technician that's dealing with it. It's a direct payment and it's working brilliantly. So how's the treatment evolved and developed since 2003? Well, they're obviously fine-tuning it as it's gone on. I mean, we now have a situation where we're treating, we did our three gold standard trials, which were very successful, and papers were published. So what's the gold standard trial? What's the gold standard trial? Sounds like an important trial. It is an important trial. We did three trials. We did one trial. They're called gold standard because it's the technique and the way they have to do them. But one trial was treating patients who'd had a heart attack. So when they were rushed to A&E, they were given the opportunity of having stem cells. The second one was patients who'd had a heart attack and developed an enlarged heart. And the third trial was where patients for no reason developed something called cardiomyelopathy, which again is like is heart failure but there's no reason they haven't had a heart attack they haven't had a stroke it's just suddenly happened and that tends to be much younger people so we've done those three different trials and the results results were excellent right i don't know whether you've had a chance to look at any of our case studies but when you go on our website and you look at our case studies the results are unbelievable so people who are interested in this how do they find you jennifer well they find us if they go on our website which is the heart cell foundation.com and you look on there you'll find all the information you need you can register with us and we will contact you and providing you tick all the boxes you'll be able to receive this amazing treatment so tick all the boxes in fact you're a sufferer of heart failure of some form but you've medically got to tick the boxes because you may have other conditions as well So I'm not a medical person, but they have to go through our whole medical system. They have to have scans to make sure that they're suitable. Right. And this is available to people free of charge? Well, the Heart Cell Foundation fund it. It costs about £12,000 to treat a patient, but we fund it, yes. Fantastic. And well, thank you and congratulations for doing that. That sounds fantastic. So you're now, as I understand it, seeking to expand this service. and raise more money? Well, what Ian's dream was, that this treatment should be available across the UK in every national health hospital, not just where it's now available at BART. So to be able to roll it out across the country in all the various national health hospitals, we now have to get that approved by NICE. We now have to do a larger trial. So to do the larger trial, we have to raise eight to 10 million pounds because we have to recruit about 600 patients to do this trial. Right. And we won't just do it at Bart's Hospital. We'll be doing the trial at different regional hospitals around the country. Right. And when you do the trial, there's a control group. Is that right? So some people aren't given a placebo. Oh, yes. How does that work? And tell us what you're going to do about that. Well, that would be the same thing because when you do a trial, you half say you're doing a trial of 600 patients 300 will have the placebo and the other 300 will have as i call it the real deal so some of them think they're getting the treatment no yeah they don't know they don't know it's this is the way interesting this is the way the medical system in this country works it's been constructed i think it's universal actually i don't think it's just in the uk i think it's everywhere but when you do these medical trials half the recipients have to have a placebo will receive the placebo so they don't know right um and then it's only when the trials get unblinded and even even say professor anthony mather that started thought he would he wouldn't know right nobody knows so how long does the trial take well it depends i think we probably took um we we unblocked them probably after a year right so so years worth of data but then that patient will be being checked up all through that year they'll be coming back for checkups just to see what their heart infraction was and yes oh well i wish you every success with that that's that's an amazing story um is there anything you would say looking at the health system more widely would be welcome i mean lots of things you could think of i imagine well i think one has I think the national health, when it works, is brilliant. And I think our relationship with Barts Hospital has been amazing. We're working with a national health hospital. We're a private charity. We have this incredible relationship. And I would love to, if you ever had the time, to come down to Barts and see the heart unit there I love to It is amazing It is state It probably the best heart center in europe it is brilliant i love to do that thanks for the invitation we organize that for you this year but it is so my experience of working with them has been amazing i know there are lots of problems and we hear about whatever but i can't i can't really express an opinion on it because i've not been involved in it so but so looking back on your career you know starting a charity i imagine is different from starting a business or is it similar i mean how did you navigate i mean we started this charity on the back of a cigarette packet i mean it um my husband went to germ ian went to germany had the treatment came back felt a million dollars and somehow he got hold of a journalist don't ask me i can't even remember how he connected with her called marianne powers who wrote for the daily mail and she thought this story was amazing and we got two, she was going to write a two-page editorial for us in the Daily Mail. And at that time, we didn't even have a name for the charity. So she said, well, you've got to get a name, you've got to get registered, you need a board of trustees. All these things were thrown at us and we just did it. I mean, we somehow, you know, we had a very dear friend who happened to be a high court judge who lived across the road. He became a trustee. The accountant became a trustee. So you put this together quickly. We cobbled it together very, very quickly. because she said when I when this article gets published you're going to have so much money pouring in that you've got to have a charity you've got to be a registered charity so we started to register a charity and then we couldn't get a bank account right but then we found a friendly banker at Hanborough's and he opened a bank account for us it was all done on the back of a back of a cigarette packet but the the story the journalist was going to write was a real impetus to getting everything else put in place and I must tell you so much money poured in oh I'll tell you another story that evolved from so communications again important exactly communication is so important so um so she did and she did two two page editorials that's quite something to have so she did one initially when ian was going to germany then she did another one about six months later after he'd been to germany and as i said the money just poured him but winding the clock forward after the trials had now started and we had what we called a patients gathering where a lot of the patients were invited down to Barts and it was the day a lot of the trials were being unblinded and this woman came up to me she said she gave me a big hug and a kiss she said I can't thank you enough she said when we read your first article of the Daily Mail we decided we're going to sell our house and my husband's going to Germany to have this treatment and then the second article came out and we read about this wonderful charity that you set up and that it was all going to happen at barts we applied and my husband was treated she said i have my husband still with me today but we still have our house and so i cannot thank you enough so we both finished up crying i mean she was crying i was crying it was very emotional very very emotional and that's amazing so but i do think communication is important at every level i think if you have to ask me one thing young people really should try and establish learn today is how to communicate with people so when you when you look at the charity now um you know it's different from a business in important respects but how would you measure success when you evaluate the charity I think I look at, first of all, it's the wonderful families I meet. Because when you have something like heart failure, it's not just the patient that's affected, the whole family's affected. And I meet the families and I hear their stories. And it's very, very humbling, actually, when you hear, you know, how their lives have changed and what you've been able to do with them. And I also find it very satisfying when I see the checks rolling in. So on that measure, you can still measure income. Absolutely. I mean, you know, I'm very on top of the financial side of things because, you know, we have to, the compassionate unit takes about half a million pounds a year to run. And the compassion unit is the one that reaches out. The compassion is the one that's operating now. Right. That's running on a weekly basis where we treat patients from all over the country. It's not a trial. It's just a regular unit. Right. whereas the new trial that we're going to do where we need to raise the eight million pounds well that will be a trial where half the patients will have the placebo and the other half will have the real deal right and i suppose the other measure of progress or success is scientific progress of course i mean and you've seen that well we've seen it and stem cells are now being used across the board not just for heart failure although it's the most advanced for heart failure but it's being looked at for macro degeneration, liver disease, all sorts of things. Yes, science moves it. Science doesn't stop. No, that's very satisfying. So just looking at your career as a whole, these three different amazing careers, chapters, let's call them. You've lived through several reinventions of yourself from fashion to philanthropy. What connects, what if anything, connects those chapters for you? Well, I think the first and second chapter connected very easily because I went from one scenario to another and I have Marks and Spencer in common. The third one just happened by default. But again, I put the same energy into running or chairing the Heart Cell Foundation as I did to running a business. I have meetings. I've had three Zoom meetings before I've come here to have this lovely conversation with you today, James. That's two more than I've had. And I like Zoom meetings because I can see the person. I am a visual person. I really am. You prefer that to talking on the phone? Yeah, I prefer that. Talking on the phone is okay. But when I'm talking, like, to our office, I do it always on Zoom. Because I like to connect. Right. So the common theme I'm hearing maybe is energy. I've got a lot of energy. I'm seeing that. And you've said, I mean, I've done my homework. You've said you never want to retire. No, I never want to retire. I just, I'm not somebody that, no, I like doing things. I like having something to aim for. I love having a list of jobs to do that I can cross off at the end of the day. I get that, and I do have a lot of energy. I really do. Yeah, I can see. So, you know, this is an important theme, energy. I mean, what do you do personally, if I might ask you, to ensure that you are fit and energetic and feel up for the day? Is there any advice you can give all of us? I've always believed in some form of exercise. I mean, it depends on what you're able to do. So what do you do? Well, I have a back issue, so I'm quite limited. But I do Pilates and I have a physio who comes twice a week. And I think walking is very important. I think if there's an easy way to go somewhere or a longer way to go somewhere, I take the longer way. And I think going up and down steps is very important. Just moving. Moving, moving. I think it's really, I think sitting all day in front of a screen, it can't be good for you. No. It really can't be. So keep moving. Keep moving. That's your message. Excellent. And what sort of impact would you hope to have over the next decade in terms of the work that you're doing now for the next generation? What we're hoping is that we get this next, this phase three trial up and running, because that will be amazing. That will be fulfilling Ian's dream that this treatment will be available across the UK. because heart failure is one of the biggest killers in this country. It's far bigger than any cancer. It really is very, very, it's very debilitating. It affects the whole family. It also affects the economics of the country because people with heart failure cannot work. Yes. And that's the other thing we found so amazing is that so many of our patients now have gone back to work. Right. And that's brilliant, isn't it? A, it's very satisfying for them, but it's also good for the country it doesn't sound i think you just said that it was 12 000 pounds a person it's not expensive no it doesn't sound ridiculous expensive at all so to make that more widely available and i mean the hospital time is minimal and we now also have some patients that don't they'll go if they live nearby they won't even stay in hospital right so it's and it's it's non-invasive you get no rejection i mean when you have a heart transplant which costs i think It costs about £300,000 a heart transplant. You've got the chance of rejection, whereas this you don't. So this is something to prevent that, ideally. Absolutely. You're very restricted. You only have about 100 heart transplants a year. Right. Well, you have to have someone else's heart. Absolutely. And you don't always have a match. You may have a heart, but it may not be a match for you. Yeah. So this is a good route to go. So this, I mean, I think stem cells are the biggest medical breakthrough of the 21st century. It's really going to revolutionize so many different illnesses. I mean, looking back over your remarkable life and career, is there anything you would like to advise or recommend your young self from what you've learned in the journey since you were 20? Well, when I look back on what I've done, I'm amazed at what I've done and how I didn't have any fear. when I think of what I was doing in my 20s I was a kid but I didn't really have any fear whatsoever I feel that anything I wanted to do I was able to do so it sounds like you know you you would have recommended to your younger self carry on in a fearless fashion absolutely but I think when you're young you don't have fear it's like if you learn to ski when you're young you're fearless when you learn to ski at my age which was 40 I was you know it wasn't the same scenario no but I do when I look back and I think what I did in my 20s it was unbelievable unbelievable but I think a lot of that was because I was very fortunate to be in that position that I was in where I was dealing with very senior business directors who had a lot of support a lot of comfort they felt very they what's the word I'm looking for they felt they had a lot of confidence in us they thought I mean, it takes something when you take a big public company and they get rid of all their senior buyers and put young kids in their 20s in that position. You've got to have a lot of courage to do things like that. They were pretty fearless too. They were very fearless. They were very fearless. So there's a buccaneering spirit we're getting here. Buccaneering, that's the word. That's what we need to hold on to. That's it, absolutely. Buccaneering spirit that every entrepreneur should. But you see, I always feel that my solution now there's always a solution to any problem as problems occur they do for me in various ways there's always a solution and we can always find that solution through often through innovation through innovation absolutely well i wish you every success with that i really hope that trial is up and running soon and that we're able to extend this wonderful innovation and service to a lot more people well thank you very much for giving me your time today and explaining what i'm doing and i hope you'll accept my invitation to come to bots now i always ask two questions at the end okay jennifer of all my guests and so i'm going to ask you the first question is because we love mondays at reed what is it that gets you up on a monday morning what is it that gets me up in the morning well i always have early appointments deliberately because i'm not the best at getting up early so if i have a nine o'clock meeting in my diary i I have to be up for it and I have to be ready for it. I mean, I always do my hair, I always put my makeup, I always get dressed. I'm so old fashioned. Even when we were in lockdown, I did that every morning. Well, good for you. It's important to uphold standards. I think it is. Standards, I think, are terribly important. That was something else I learned at M&S, standards. Right. And my last question, which is an interview question from my interview book, Why You, is where do you see yourself in five years' time? Well, I'd like to still be here in five years' time. I don't know. I'd like to, well, first of all, the trial will be up and running then, definitely in five years' time, and we will have made enormous progress, and it will be much more well-known than it is currently. And me personally, just doing more of the things I enjoy doing. I mean, I love going to the, I'm very involved with the art world, which I enjoy. I play bridge. I've got a lot of interest as well as my charity. Very good. I wish you all the very best with all of those things. Thank you for coming in. Thank you for inviting me. It's been a real pleasure. I so enjoyed the conversation. Me too. It's been lovely. Thanks, Jennifer. Thank you. Thank you, Jennifer, for joining me on All About Business. I'm your host, James Reid, Chairman and CEO of Reid, a family-run recruitment and philanthropy company. If you'd like to learn more about Reid or the Heart Sells Foundation, you'll find all the links in the show notes see you next time