Inspirational speaker, Sahar Hashemi, founded Coffee Republic, the UK’s first US style coffee bar chain with her brother.  They went on to build it into one of the UK’s most recognised high street brands with a turnover of £30m. Giving up highly professional jobs, she a lawyer in London and he an investment banker in New York, they staked everything on a dream.  As a result they made Coffee Republic one of the main players in the ‘coffee revolution.’  Together they transformed a nation of tea drinkers into one obsessed with ‘triple decaf half-caf lattes. She was named Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum Davos.

Sahar left the day to day management of Coffee Republic in 2001 and in 2005 launched Skinny Candy, a high profile brand of sugar free sweets. It has received wide press coverage and is available across big department store chains throughout UK.

She proves that passion is all you need – ‘its your fuel!’ and what turns you into an entrepreneur.

Books

Sahar has written, Anyone Can Do It – Building Coffee Republic from our Kitchen table.’  The book tackles some of the elusive questions about what it really takes to become an entrepreneur. Its a personal story about two people who stopped ‘thinking about it’ and ‘did it’. ‘Anyone Can Do It’ reached #1 on the Amazon business chart.  It is named as ‘suggested reading’ for the London Business School entrepreneurship course.  Subsequently, Sahar went on to write Switched On – based on her experience working with big corporations about activating the creative entrepreneurial mindset.  Her latest publication Start Up Forever was published in 2019 and was named a FT Business Book of the month.

Latest venture

In 2023 Sahar co-founded a new inspirational venture – Buy Women Built, BWB, with a new kite mark to help consumers identify products designed by women.  The key aim is to boost investment in female led brands and inspire future entrepreneurs.

Inspirational speaker

Sahar is an outstanding motivational speaker and inspires both entrepreneurs and employees within companies to be innovative and achieve their best.  As a keynote speaker Sahar’s energy is infectious.  Consequently, delegates leave the event inspired and motivated to stop ‘thinking about it’ and ‘get on with it’!’ As a business motivational speaker she uses her personal experience to bring to life the tools employees need to leave their comfort zone.  To come alive at work, be the one to spot opportunities, have inspired ideas, make them happen and ultimately become indispensable. Feedback includes:

“She took her audience on a 30-minute ride-taking them through a heart-tugging and sincere tale of how she made it big in business … Her story was a little like the Alchemist, and the audience wouldn’t stop clapping even after Hashemi stepped down from the stage” Exchange4Media

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