From family breadwinner at 11 to world-famous perfume entrepreneur

British entrepreneur and famed perfumer Ms Jo Malone CBE has opened up about her rough upbringing and how becoming her family’s breadwinner at 11-years-old sowed the first seeds of entrepreneurship.

Malone, the founder of successful fragrance brands Jo Malone London and Jo Loves, appeared on an episode of CNBC’s “Executive Decisions” podcast with Steve Sedgwick, released on Tuesday.

Jo Malone London was acquired by The Estée Lauder Companies in 1999 and netted the founder an undisclosed sum of millions.

However, long before becoming a millionaire, Malone recalled growing up on a council estate in Kent in the United Kingdom, with a mother who worked in the beauty industry and a father who was an artist as well as a gambler and poker player.

“From the age of 11, I was really the one who was the adult that would say: ‘Have we got enough money for the electric and gas meter?’ Because I knew that if he gambled all the money, there’d be nothing to eat,” Malone said to Sedgwick.

Her mother had a breakdown before Malone hit her teens and she didn’t attend school for almost a year as she tried to find a way to make ends meet for her mum, dad and younger sister.

A savvy Malone drew on her mother’s experience and teaching, replicating the face creams she used to sell — taking them to London on the train and selling them to clients for £4.50 ($5.90).

“That is how I kept our family together, and my father would come in and out of life whenever he felt he needed to come home,” she said.

“I think I was made during those moments and no matter what came at me, I always found a way out. I found a gateway or I found a tunnel or a ladder, and I think: ‘Okay how do I make the next £20?”

On Saturdays, Malone recalled selling her father’s paintings because the family needed money for food and he was prone to squandering it. On Sundays, she would attend poker games by his side, where he taught her how to read marked cards.

Now, Malone is an accomplished entrepreneur, and she looks back on those challenging experiences in childhood as a time that shaped her into the resilient businesswoman she is today.

“I kept saying to myself: ‘When I grow up, I’m not going to live like this. I’m not going to have a family like this’,” Malone said.

“And I can remember one day being in my bedroom, and we didn’t have any central heating. It was really cold, and there was ice on the window, and I remember scraping the ice with my finger and looking out and thinking ‘I’ve got to change my destiny’.”

Malone says she was lonely as a teenager because she wasn’t able to do ‘normal’ things with her friends, like playing sports. Instead, she was at home doing the washing, cooking dinner, and picking up her little sister from school.

She only realized as she grew older that her independence had fostered an entrepreneurial drive.

“It was survival in the beginning,” she explained, recounting her first few jobs in a flower shop, washing dishes in restaurants, and walking people’s dogs.

“I was never embarrassed about washing up or doing any of any of those things to survive, and I think it was when I started that first business of skincare, that’s when I knew that I was in charge of my own life, and I had to make that happen,” Malone said.

“And that’s when the entrepreneur, although I didn’t know what the word entrepreneur meant, that’s when the entrepreneur really took hold,” she said.

Malone, who no longer has any involvement with Jo Malone London, now lives in Dubai and launched a luxury spirits brand, Jo Vodka, this year. She also has a scent business, Jo Loves.

Listen to the full episode of “Executive Decisions” with Steve Sedgwick wherever you get your podcasts, or click here.