Richard Reed

Richard Reed
CBE
Born (1973-02-13) 13 February 1973
Mirfield, West Yorkshire, England
Nationality British
Alma mater St John's College, Cambridge
Occupation Businessman, investor, entrepreneur, public speaker
Known for Investor and co-founder of the Innocent Drinks and Jamjar Investments companies
Net worth Increase GBP £50 million (2016)
Awards
Website

Richard John Reed, CBE (born 13 February 1973) is an English businessman, investor and entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of Innocent Drinks (founded in 1998),[1][2][3] an international company producing fresh fruit smoothies and vegetable pots sold in various outlets around the world, and of Jamjar Investments (founded 2012).[4] He pioneered "wackaging" – quirky messages on packaging – of products such as smoothies.[5][6]

Biography

Richard Reed was born in 1973 in Kirkheaton, West Yorkshire, and grew up in Upper Hopton, Mirfield.[7] He attended Batley Grammar School and went on to study geography at St John's College, Cambridge (1991–94),[8] after which he worked as an account manager in an advertising agency for four years.[1] In 1998, with fellow Cambridge graduates Adam Balon and Jon Wright, he set up a smoothie and drinks company called Innocent Drinks, initially operating from a market stall. Reed said in an interview with The Financial Times: "After we left our jobs, we had no cash – just one month's salary each that we tried to eke out for two months. We each ran up debts of about £15,000 from overdrafts and credit cards.... It took us four years before we were back to earning £40,000 – the same salary that we had left."[1] Their brand over the years grew to become the biggest in Europe and in 2013 was sold to Coca-Cola.[7]

Reed is involved with various charities, and is the founder of Art Everywhere[9] and co-founder of the Innocent Foundation and in 2012 JamJar Investments.[4] He also presented the BBC Three series Be Your Own Boss.[10][11]

He is the author of If I Could Tell You Just One Thing...Encounters with Remarkable People and Their Most Valuable Advice (Canongate Books, 2016),[12][5] donating the author's profits from the book to five mentoring and social inclusion charities.[13]

At the 2016 Queen's Birthday Honours, Reed was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to the food industry and to charity.[7][14]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "My First Million: Richard Reed of Innocent Drinks", Financial Times, 1 July 2011.
  2. ↑ Asa Bennett, "Innocent Drinks’ Richard Reed Talks Entrepreneurship, Dragons Den And Hollywood", HuffPost, 26 July 2013.
  3. ↑ "Richard Reed, Innocent Drinks", Business – BBC News, 15 October 2010.
  4. 1 2 Ruthven, Hunter, "Innocent Drinks founders invest in child car seat though Jam Jar fund", Real Business, 31 May 2015.
  5. 1 2 Lewis, Tim (23 October 2016). "Richard Reed: 'Will wackaging be my contribution to the species?'". The Guardian.
  6. ↑ Nicola, "The Rise of Wackaging", Edible Geography, 23 October 2016.
  7. 1 2 3 Glover, Chloe (19 October 2016). "CBE for Innocent Smoothies co-founder Richard Reed". The Huddersfield Daily Examiner.
  8. ↑ "Richard Reed". LinkedIn. Retrieved 24 February 2017.
  9. ↑ "Art Everywhere", Art Fund.
  10. ↑ "Behind the book", If I Could Tell You Just One Thing website.
  11. ↑ "Richard Reed", Be Your Own Boss, BBC Three.
  12. ↑ If I Could Tell You Just One Thing... at Canongate.
  13. ↑ "The charities", If I Could Tell You Just One Thing website.
  14. ↑ "Queen's Birthday Honours 2016: Full list of great and the good awarded for services to their country", Daily Mirror, 11 June 2016.
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