Holly Tucker

Early and personal life

Tucker was born and raised in Chiswick, London, UK, and has one younger sister. In August 1984, at the age of 7, Tucker and her family relocated to Bergen op Zoom, the Netherlands, in support of her father’s career. The family returned to the UK in July 1989.

Tucker currently lives in St. Margaret’s, Twickenham, with her partner, Frank, and son, Harry.

Tucker displayed early traits of entrepreneurship. While at school she worked weekends as a waitress, and also ran the school tuck shop during the week, making a healthy profit from the sale of goods, which was donated to the school's nominated annual charity.

Tucker has struggled with dyslexia throughout her life.

Education

In 1980, at the age of 3, Tucker was enrolled at Kew College, a preparatory school based in Kew, Richmond-upon-Thames, for children aged 3–11.

Following the family's relocation to Bergen op Zoom, The Netherlands in 1984, Tucker was enrolled at The Antwerp International School in Belgium. The family returned to the UK in July 1989 and Tucker started at her new school in October 1989, the Licensed Victuallers' School, at its new site in Ascot. It was during her time at LVS that Tucker was recognised for her strengths and creative abilities, winning competitions and awards including:

She was appointed Head Girl in 1994, and in 1995 she passed A-Levels in Art & Design, Design & Technology, and Business Studies.

Career

In October 1995 Tucker began work as a Trainee Account Executive at Publicis, where she had already had a work experience placement for three consecutive summers. Tucker was one of the youngest trainee account executives in London at the time, gaining five years’ experience in hardcore advertising, working for accounts such as L'Oreal's Luxury Products International division of Prestige and Collections, and Royal Doulton.

In February 1999, Tucker left Publicis to take up the position of Fashion Manager for Brides magazine, published by Conde Nast.

In June 2000 she joined a small start-up website, Coolwhite.com, based in Chelsea Harbour. The site offered a premium wedding directory, allowing the bride or groom to search a curated selection of unique wedding services directly, such as venues, photographers and florists, all on one platform based on the pay-per-click model.

During her employment with Coolwhite.com, Tucker ran the ‘Chiswick Christmas Fair’ in October 2003, which was featured in ‘The Chiswick’. Due to its success, Tucker handed in her resignation and started her own business, ‘Your Local Fair’, a series of upmarket events that were staged in affluent areas of London and the South East. In April and June 2004, Tucker ran the Hampstead Children’s Fair and Fulham Summer Fair respectively, both of which ran under the banner of ‘Your Local Fair’. Tucker ran the final fair, ‘Your Chiswick Christmas Fair’, at the Town Hall in Chiswick, in December 2004, due to the fact she was heavily pregnant with her son, Harry.

‘Your Local Fair’ provided the inspiration for notonthehighstreet.com, which Tucker co-founded with Sophie Cornish in 2006. When the company launched, it was running on a shoestring budget with Tucker and Cornish underwriting the business’ debts, working unpaid for over a year with only skeleton staff as support. notonthehighstreet.com has grown to become an award-winning online marketplace, providing a retail platform for 5,000 curated small creative and entrepreneurial businesses, collectively offering more than 200,000 original and innovative products. The company currently employs 200 people at its offices in Richmond-upon-Thames, which Tucker refers to as ‘Silicon-upon-Thames’.

In recognition of her contribution to business, Tucker was awarded an MBE for services to small businesses and enterprise as part of the Queen's Birthday Honours List in June 2013.

In October 2015, she launched Instadvice - a business advice blog offering instant advice to small creative businesses and independents. The advice given is supported by artwork and photography, which is fed through from Tucker’s Instagram feed. The success of Instadvice led to the creation of Holly & Co, a curated advice and inspiration platform, launching in Spring 2017.

Continuing her career, Tucker was invited to become a "UK Ambassador to Creative Small Businesses" in September 2015, with the official announcement being made by the Prime Minister in November 2015. In this role Tucker represents and supports creative small business in the UK.

Charity

Tucker was instrumental in founding The Happy Bricks Foundation, a small non-profit charity which focuses on the lives of disadvantaged children globally, raising money to improve the quality of the environment they live in. The charity, which was founded in April 2013 and officially registered by the Charity Commission in February 2015, has already completed a school build in Lukwambe, Tanzania, and has co-funded the build and fit-out of a new science laboratory at a small independent school in Windsor, The Green Room, which provides an alternative for young people who can no longer access mainstream education.

The school build in Lukwambe was completed and officially opened in April 2015, and now provides an education to 100 children. The charity continues to support the needs of school in terms of development and resources.

The new science laboratory at The Green Room Independent School was officially opened in December 2015, enabling the pupils of the school to work toward obtaining a third GCSE in Science, previously only being able to achieve GCSEs in English and Mathematics.

Books

Awards and honours