"With time, you learn to trust your joint CEO's instincts and override your own"
Neom Organics’ co-founder, Oliver Mennell on avoiding tension with your co-founder, global expansion and why he interviews every new recruit personally.
As family friends with entrepreneurial fathers, Nicola Elliott and Oliver Mennell, would concoct business plans together growing up, promising to one day work together. Elliott rose to become editor of Glamour magazine, while Mennell went into the world of private equity. It wasn’t until the grind took its toll on Elliott that she came up with the idea for a wellbeing range and gave Mennell a call.
Over dinner, the two put together a business plan for Neom (named after their initials). “I’d manage the commercial side of the business, while she managed the product ideation and creativity,” Mennell tells Management Today.
Since its inception in 2005, the brand has come on leaps and bounds. It boasts five standalone retail stores, concession stands in leading department stores including Selfridges and its direct to consumer revenue in December 2021 rose 35% to £6.9m from £5.1m in 2020. Now the founders are preparing for global expansion.
