Business Icons: Diana Bird, co-founder and director of Wedge Card

NAME: Diana Bird
JOB: Co-founder and director of Wedge Card
MARITAL STATUS: Married
CHILDREN: One son, Theo
PLAY: I used to cook for a living and I am obsessed with feeding people. I like yoga and reading.

Entrepreneur Diana Bird says her childhood ambition was simply to ‘leave the house without telling anyone’. But the daughter of John Bird, founder of the Big Issue, is now the co-founder and director of a loyalty card company called Wedge Card and admits that she always believed she would have a business.

She says: ‘My father believes in child labour. His business was always part of my life. My dad always used to take me to work. He would say “Don’t go to school today, come to work with me”. Now I am the one bringing my son all over the place.’

Diana remembers helping her father stuff postcards into plastic bags for a Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign, earning 20p an hour. Preferring cooking to school, she then managed a couple of A levels before travelling to Los Angeles where she lived for two years managing the then start-up, the Big Issue USA.

On her return to the UK Diana launched her own catering company, Lady Bird’s Kitchen, and in four years of business cooked canapés for an array of artistic, political and literary launches.

The arrival of her son, Theo, put an end to catering, but she was soon discussing another business venture with her father, John Bird, founder of the Big Issue. She launched Wedge Card, an innovative loyalty scheme that rewards people for shopping locally, in December 2006.

She says: ‘It is hard [juggling home life and work life] but I want my son to see me working hard. My husband is a freelance photographer and my mother lives nearby so we juggle things together pretty well.’

Now Wedge Card will be launching in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, through a partnership funded by the Kensington and Chelsea Council.

She says: ‘This will be the biggest area we have done so far. Almost 600 businesses have signed up since the 9th of January out of 1,600 independent shops in the borough so it is going really well.’

She adds: ‘Last year we launched in Camden and some other smaller areas and we have had some amazing feedback. Unfortunately there is so much need for independent shops to have support. It is so hard for small businesses to be everything, so some extra marketing and promotional support is really useful for them.’

Wedge Card’s launch in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea will see 150,000 Wedge Cards provided free to local residents and made available to students and workers, giving them access to exclusive discounts, savings and special offers at hundreds of independent retailers, restaurants, galleries and cafes across the Borough.

The scheme aims to revolutionise community shopping habits by encouraging local people to support small retailers and discover their local shops. It is free for independent businesses to register and once registered they have the opportunity to have their own page on the Wedge Card website, update users with their offers and promote events through Wedge Card email newsletters.

She says: ‘We hope to launch in as many areas as want us. We are encouraging independent businesses to do what works for them with Wedge Card so they can think creatively about how to utilize the service. For example we have theatres offering last minute deals and restaurants promoting special offers like free main courses.’

www.wedgecard.co.uk

Tags: Diana Bird, famous entrepreneurs, Inspirational stories, SME case Studies - Startup Stories, Wedge Card, working mums

Posted by Vicki Owen on Saturday, April 3rd, 2010 at 11:40 am.

Filed under Business Icons, News, SMEs, Starting a Business, Tagged as: , Diana Bird, famous entrepreneurs, Inspirational stories, SME case Studies - Startup Stories, Wedge Card, working mums.