Alison Cork MBE

Founder, Alison at Home & Make It Your Business

Entrepreneur, writer and broadcaster, Alison Cork has over the past 20 years built up a home interiors business, Alison at Home encompassing publishing, online retail, design, licensing and TV shopping.

Prior to that, she co-founded publishing company Carnell Ltd, which floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1994, at which point she became the youngest female founder of a publicly quoted company.

A champion of female entrepreneurs, in 2017 Alison founded Make It Your Business, a nationwide network supporting and encouraging women to start their own business. In 2020 she became Ambassador for the British Library Business & IP Centres. In 2023 she founded National Women’s Enterprise Week.

Alison is an active investor in early stage businesses. In 2023 Alison was awarded an MBE for services to Female Entrepreneurship. She has an MA in Classics from Cambridge University.

Why do you support the work of The Entrepreneurs Network?

I have always rated The Entrepreneurs Network as a very pro-active organisation which consistently produces reports that are relevant, well researched and almost invariably enlightening.

What is your particular area of interest and why?

I am very involved with women in the economy. Particular post Covid, we are seeing more women starting their own business, but we are still behind the curve in terms of policy, products and services to support them.

What more could we do to support entrepreneurs?

Compared to other countries, there are relatively few barriers to starting a business, yet still plenty of room to improve our entrepreneurial infrastructure. In particular I am interested in the power of libraries as a natural conduit through which entrepreneurs could gain access to information, advice, finance and mentoring at local level.