Mark Constantine

Last updated

Mark Constantine

OBE
Mark Constantine.jpg
Born1952
Occupation(s)Entrepreneur and businessman
Known forCo-founder of Lush
SpouseMo Constantine

Mark Constantine OBE (born 1952) is a British entrepreneur and trichologist best known as the co-founder and CEO of Lush, described as "one of the world's biggest cosmetics firms". [1]

Contents

Personal life

Constantine was born in 1952 in Sutton. He failed his GCEs at Weymouth Grammar School and became homeless at the age of 16, sleeping in a tent in an area of woodland. [1] Later on, he took an apprenticeship as a hairdresser, earning £3 per week. [2]

In 2018 Constantine's childhood friend Jeff Osment wrote Dear John: The Road to Pelindaba ( ISBN   9780992708269) about Constantine's quest to trace his absent father John. It was published by Lush to ensure that Amazon could not distribute it, as there had been conflict between Lush and Amazon. [2]

Constantine has a daughter and two sons. [1]

Career

Early beginnings and freelance work

Constantine worked in a cosmetics retailer in the 1970s after being made homeless where he was the victim of workplace sexual harassment. After several jobs in the London area, Constantine relocated back to Poole to work in the freelance cosmetics industry. [3] During his freelance career, Constantine sent samples of his work, such as shampoo, to Dame Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop from whom he took some orders. However, due to intellectual property rights which Roddick believe she owned, Constantine sold the company to her in 1991 for a sum of £17 million. [3]

Cosmetics To Go

After the sale, Constantine, along with his wife Margaret ("Mo"), reinvested the capital into Cosmetics To Go, a "direct mail startup." However, this venture ended quickly. Bankruptcy was filed in 1994, citing the products being priced too cheaply and Constantine underestimating business expenses. [3]

Lush

Constantine and Mo founded Lush in Poole in 1995. [4] By 2007 there were 462 Lush stores in 46 countries, with a combined revenue of $292 million. [3] The company was described in 2018 as "one of the world's biggest cosmetics firms". [1]

Constantine and Mo were both appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2011 New Year Honours, having been recognised for their "services to the beauty industry." [4] [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeff Bezos</span> American business magnate (born 1964)

Jeffrey Preston Bezos is an American entrepreneur, media proprietor, investor, and commercial astronaut. He is the founder, executive chairman, and former president and CEO of Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce and cloud computing company. With a net worth of US$125 billion as of April 2023, Bezos is the third-wealthiest person in the world and was the wealthiest from 2017 to 2021, according to both the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and Forbes.

Dear John may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haley Joel Osment</span> American actor (born 1988)

Haley Joel Osment is an American actor and voice actor. Beginning his career as a child actor, Osment's role in the comedy-drama film Forrest Gump (1994) won him a Young Artist Award. His breakthrough came with the psychological thriller film The Sixth Sense (1999), which won him a Saturn Award and earned him nominations for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. He achieved further success with the drama film Pay It Forward (2000), the science fiction film A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) which won him a second Saturn Award, and the comedy film Secondhand Lions (2003), which won him a Critics Choice Award.

Kleiner Perkins, formerly Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), is an American venture capital firm which specializes in investing in incubation, early stage and growth companies. Since its founding in 1972, the firm has backed entrepreneurs in over 900 ventures, including America Online, Amazon.com, Tandem Computers, Compaq, Electronic Arts, JD.com, Square, Genentech, Google, Netscape, Sun Microsystems, Nest, Palo Alto Networks, Synack, Snap, AppDynamics, and Twitter. By 2019 it had raised around $9 billion in 19 venture capital funds and four growth funds.

<i>The Big Issue</i> Street newspaper that supports homeless people

The Big Issue is a street newspaper founded by John Bird and Gordon Roddick in September 1991 and published in four continents. The Big Issue is one of the UK's leading social businesses and exists to offer homeless people, or individuals at risk of homelessness, the opportunity to earn a legitimate income, thereby helping them to reintegrate into mainstream society. It is the world's most widely circulated street newspaper.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anita Roddick</span> British businesswoman and activist (1942–2007)

Dame Anita Lucia Roddick was a British businesswoman, human rights activist and environmental campaigner, best known as the founder of The Body Shop, now The Body Shop International Limited, a cosmetics company producing and retailing natural beauty products which shaped ethical consumerism. The company was one of the first to prohibit the use of ingredients tested on animals in some of its products and one of the first to promote fair trade with developing countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Body Shop</span> International cosmetics, skin care company

The Body Shop International Limited, trading as The Body Shop, is a British cosmetics, skin care and perfume company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Pellington</span> American film director, writer, and producer

Mark Pellington is an American film director, writer, and producer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bath bomb</span> Effervescent bathing product

A bath bomb is a consumer product used during bathing. It was invented and patented in 1989 by Mo Constantine, co-founder of Lush Cosmetics. It is a compacted mixture of wet and dry ingredients molded into any of several shapes and then dried. Bath water effervesces at the surface of a bath bomb immersed within it, with attendant dispersion of such ingredients as essential oil, moisturizer, scent, or colorant.

Sunseeker International is a British luxury performance motor yacht brand. Originally named Poole Power Boats, the company was founded by brothers Robert and John Braithwaite in 1969. The company changed its name to Sunseeker International in 1985 and has since become a global icon. Its headquarters and main assembly facility is in Poole Harbour, at Poole in Dorset, England. The majority shareholder has been Wanda Group since 2013. It is the largest UK-based luxury yacht maker measured by 2012 revenues.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lush (company)</span> Cosmetics company

Lush Retail Ltd. is a British cosmetics retailer which is headquartered in Poole, Dorset, United Kingdom. It was founded in 1995 by trichologist Mark Constantine, his wife Mo Constantine and five other founders. Lush has 951 stores globally.

Constantine Walter Benson OBE was a British ornithologist and author of over 350 publications. He is considered the last of a line of British Colonial officials that made significant contributions to ornithology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Bird, Baron Bird</span> British social entrepreneur and life peer

John Anthony Bird, Baron Bird, is a British social entrepreneur and life peer. He is best known as the co-founder of The Big Issue, a magazine that is edited by professional journalists and sold by street vendors who are homeless or vulnerably-housed. Bird sits as an independent Crossbencher member of the House of Lords.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Payoneer</span> Financial services company

Payoneer Global Inc. is an American financial services company that provides online money transfer, digital payment services and provides customers with working capital.

Fiverr is a global online marketplace for freelance services. Fiverr’s platform connects freelancers (sellers) to people or businesses looking to hire (buyers). Listings on Fiverr are diverse and range from "get a well-designed business card" to "help with HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and jQuery". The highest-paying jobs on Fiverr include website design, social media manager, proofreading and copywriting, and resume writing. Fiverr takes its name from the $5 asking price attached to all tasks when the company was founded in 2010 in Tel Aviv. These days many sellers charge much more.

The Players' Tribune is a new media platform that produces daily sports conversation and publishes first-person stories from professional athletes. The platform was founded by former professional Major League Baseball player Derek Jeter in 2014. Content ranges from videos to podcasts to written pieces.

<i>Goliath</i> (TV series) American legal drama television series

Goliath is an American legal drama streaming television series by Amazon Studios. The show was commissioned with a straight-to-series order of eight episodes on December 1, 2015 and premiered on October 13, 2016, on Amazon Prime Video. On February 15, 2017, Amazon announced the series had been renewed for a second season and confirmed that Clyde Phillips was joining the series as showrunner. The trailer for season 2 was released on May 1, 2018. Season 2, consisting of eight episodes, was released on June 15, 2018. On December 11, 2018, the series was renewed for a third season, which premiered on October 4, 2019. On November 14, 2019, Amazon announced the series was renewed for a fourth and final season, which premiered on September 24, 2021.

Michael Gordon Bloch KC is a British barrister, a member of Blackstone Chambers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Amazon</span>

Amazon.com, Inc. is an American multinational technology company which focuses on e-commerce, cloud computing, and digital streaming. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economic and cultural forces in the world", and is one of the world's most valuable brands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Bezos</span> Jeff Bezoss brother

Mark Bezos is an American space tourist and former advertising executive. He is the half-brother of Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, with whom he flew to the edge of space as part of the Blue Origin NS-16 mission on July 20, 2021.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Westwater, Hannah (20 December 2018). "Lush founder Mark Constantine shares his own experience of homelessness". The Big Issue. Retrieved 12 July 2019.
  2. 1 2 Slade, Darren (12 November 2018). "Lush boss Mark Constantine on the search for his father". Bournemouth Echo. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Morais, Richard (28 September 2007). "Clean Scrub". Forbes. Retrieved 14 July 2019.
  4. 1 2 "OBE for Dorset couple who founded cosmetics firm Lush". BBC News. 31 December 2010. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  5. United Kingdom: "No. 59647". The London Gazette (1st supplement). 31 December 2010. p. 9.