Wilson created some innovative ways to leverage the market, which puts a lot of pressure financially on traditional hotels and its bigger competitors such as Howard Johnson’s, Best Western, and even the Ramada Inn Company.
There were 1400 holiday Inn hotels across the world by 1972, which funnily enough was the same year that Charles Wilson appeared on the cover of Time magazine.
In 1979 Charles Wilson retired from the hotelier business, and in doing so retire and The Holiday Inn Corporation (Holiday Corporation), was taken over by the UK-based company Bass PLC.
However, it wasn’t until 1990 that Charles Wilson sold the rest of his shares to Bass PLC and that company gained full control became known worldwide.
#16 Simon Nixon
Simon Nixon is one of those entrepreneurs that likes to keep his cards close to his chest, and his personal life private. Therefore, until 2008, there wasn’t much information on Simon Nixon.
If you don’t already know who he is, Simon Nixon is best known as the man who founded Money Supermarket.
Moneysupermarket Group PLC is a British price comparison website-based business specialising in financial services. The website enables consumers to compare prices on a range of products, including energy car insurance, home insurance, travel insurance, mortgages, credit cards and loans.
A contact – Duncan Cameron, who was also an off-line mortgage adviser, liked the idea and invested a little in Simon Nixon’s idea.
In 1999 Nixon took the business online, providing online mortgage information and expanding to provide services within the credit card and personal loans sector.
With a combination of brilliant and refreshing customer service the business grew beyond his wildest dreams and in 2003 he opened up another website under the money supermarket brand called insuresupermarket
The business was growing and in 2007 Duncan Cameron had sold his share of 47% which Simon Nixon bought for approximately ?162 million.
In the same year, the company listed on the London stock exchange and has now grown into on of the UK’s best know businesses – famous in part for their amusing TV commercials, staring among others comedian Omid Djalili.
#17 Anita Roddick
Dame Anita Roddick created The Body Shop in 1976 with just 15 products that she had sourced herself from around the world. Anita had traveled extensively before opening up her business and with her husband and two girls in tow she set off to create something special.
Unlike today, it was a massive task of get shoppers to part with money for “Greener” products. Fortunately, with escort backpage Cambridge MA motivation, a dollop of passion and a pinch of luck, Anita succeeded. ?
Anita had built her empire to a whopping 1,980 The Body Shop stores, with over 75 million customers worldwide in 50 different countries by 2003 when she was then bought out in a very controversial deal with L’Oreal.
It was controversial due to The Body Shop not using ANY products tested on animals, as opposed to L’Oreals company, which did.
The deal made her ?652.3 million ($1.03 billion) better off. A well-deserved reward for her many years of service to “green consumerism”.
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#18 Donald Trump
He started his career by successfully revamping a failing complex with an appalling occupancy percentage, turning it into a comfortable complex with 100% occupancy.
