MAry Portas

Mary Portas shouldn’t need too much of an introduction: a businesswoman, broadcaster, author and activist, her BBC series, Mary Queen of Shops, premiered in 2007 and she has presented on television and radio ever since.

In I Shop, Therefore I am, Mary takes us behind her personal shop window starting with her transformation of Knightsbridge’s iconic Harvey Nicholls, introduces us to the people who kept the show on the road and the early lessons that shaped her career. Her’s is a tale told with wit, grit and candour, and shows how, armed only with the blank canvas of a shop window and her own creativity, she was able to create an era-defining global brand destination.

Mary now runs her own retail consultancy and has worked with some of the biggest names in global retail. In 2009, she partnered with Save The Children to reinvent charity shops.

‘Portas is a sort of tornado, unpredictable, funny and slightly terrifying, travelling at the speed of light. But in the quiet eye of [her] storm of a book lies great wisdom and truth. Absolutely irresistible.’ Joanna Lumley