Thank you to Brightec for sponsoring this award.
Rosie has been a member of MDHUB for many years with Leapfrogg a very early social media company. Rosie also joined in the MDHUB tour to China.
Rosie has now been asked into The Secret Linen Store by the founders (her sisters) to help run the strategy and the Senior Leadership Team. She has pulled the team together and focussed them on the vision, strategy and goals of the business whilst keeping it a great place to work.
Fi once asked Rosie as a child, what did she want to be when she grew up .
Rosie replied – I wanted to be famous but not anymore as I have too many skeletons in the closet! I went onto do drama at college but that did not quite work out – I never had an aspiration to run my own business. I had absolutely no expectation that I would end up in a business career.
Biggest life skill taught by her parents – absolutely try your hardest at everything. Our Dad’s favourite saying was – Freshwaters never miss school unless they are dying ! At social events he taught us FHB ( Freshwaters Hold Back ) – which taught us to let other people go first – and don’t dive headlong into the buffet !
Rosie also commented that she would never work for her parents in a billion years nor encourage her kids to work for her either!
Helen Bailey’s comments
Rosie is a natural born leader. Constantly learning, yearning for more and ridiculously organised. She plays hard and works hard. Her latest hobby of DJing sums up the jazz handed, acrobatting, partying, enthusiatic wonderful human being that she is. She has a laugh to light up a meeting, business advice that you drink like water and unbelievable confidence that rarely gets chipped. Her ability to make things happen, be tough when needed and an unrelenting focus makes her the leader that will stand alongside the other lionesses in Secret Linen and make it a global success
Kerry Kyriacou’s comments:
Although Rosie was not my nomination, because she has been in the WWA workgroup since it was formed in 2019, I wonder if it is acceptable to say this about Rosie & the Lioness Award:
Rosie was offered the position of MD at the Secret Linen Store, because of her broad business skills growing, managing & organising successful companies.
Rosie has proven to be a dynamic M.D now and in the past. Her initial brief was to fill the gap in the organisations people’s skills, motivation, and energy. The SMT had previously been stretched beyond their roles and were concerned that the high growth of the company would start to falter in the absence of the right skills for the right jobs and the right people in the right roles.
The SMT realised they needed an MD who has the vision, foresight, and experience to reorganise the organisational structure, recruit and develop skilled & unskilled labour, committed to achieving the 2nd & 3rd phases of fast high growth.
The appointment of Rosie meant that the SMT team can solely focus on their director roles, having the confidence in their new MD to transform the teams at all levels into a high performing and happy team.
This achievement has also had a positive impact on the culture & environment of the Secret Linen Store.
Rosie has a no no-nonsense approach to her people management skills, yet is an excellent listener, will play fair and reward against performance. Her teams know where they stand with Rosie and commands the respect of her broad experience managing large teams of people.
Why would Rosie get my nomination: Dynamic MD who is skillful at creating happy high performing teams.