"If you think you are too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito" - Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop.

Born in October 1942, Anita Roddick grew up with her working class Italian immigrant parents in Littlehampton, south of England. She spent her childhood years helping out after school in the café that her parents and grandparents ran, sharing a room with the rest of the family while the other rooms in their house were let out to bring in some extra cash. Having completed school, she went to college to study education, and taught for a while before deciding to travel. She eventually ended up working at the United Nations

On her return, her mother introduced her to Gordon Roddick, with whom she had an instant rapport. Anita and Gordon were married in 1970, and together they had two daughters. In the early years of their marriage, they started a few businesses together, including a picture framing shop, a restaurant and later a hotel, however they eventually found that the hard work was not bringing in suitable returns, and they packed it in.

It was while Gordon was travelling in the States that Anita first got the idea for the Body Shop. Tired of spending lots of money on huge quantities of expensively presented cosmetics, she saw the need for affordable, every-day cosmetics in cheap packaging, all made from natural ingredients. And so she set to work on her first line. She opened her first shop in Brighton in 1976, and by the following year there were already several successful Body Shops under franchise operations.

Anita and Gordon worked together to develop their unique philosophy for the Body Shop - not only to increase profits, but to use the shop as a platform to create social and environmental change. Anita is a staunch promoter of social responsibility, human rights, and the protection of animals and the environment. The Body Shop gets a large amount of publicity from the various organisations they support, such as Greenpeace, Save-The-Whales and Friends of the Earth.

Today the Body Shop has grown into a multi-national company with over 13 hundred stores in 46 countries. Anita has received a number of awards, including various achievement awards, environmental awards and outstanding entrepreneurs award. She was also awarded the order of the British Empire in 1988, and holds honorary degrees in law, science and business administration.

Anita truly lives by her motto: "A woman in advancing old age is unstoppable by any earthly force."

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