Business is looking good for Fenay Bridge entrepreneur Gill Shaw.

The Sunderland-born businesswoman has swapped the pressures of the corporate world for self-employment – and she couldn’t be happier about the decision.

She has put decades of experience in the beauty business to good use in her role as founding stylist leader with My Showcase, a personal beauty shopping service which sells a wide range of independent beauty brands to customers in their own homes, online or in the workplace.

My Showcase was co-founded by Nancy Cruickshank, founder of handbag.com, and Kate Shapland, former beauty editor of the Telegraph Magazine, along with chief operations officer Rodrigo Dauster and chief technical officer Olivier Beau de Lomenie, the man who led the team that built online grocery business Ocado.

Gill joined My Showcase last year after a career working for some of the cosmetic industry’s biggest names, such as Mary Quant, Virgin Cosmetics and Bodyshop.

But her journey started at the far from glamorous South Shields Marine and Technical College – where she and her female friends studied hairdressing and beauty while the boys were training to be naval officers.

“It was a bit of a bizarre mix going into that environment at the age of 16,” she says. “You grew up quite quickly. We were around guys who were much older than us girls.

“The lecturers were teaching us business studies and business management – and I think we were quite a challenge to them! But I have been able to draw on what they taught us ever since.

“There a lot of stigma about the beauty industry – that you have to be a bit of an airhead to go into it. I could probably have gone to university, but it was not for me. I’ve been back to the college recently and made a speech to the students.”

Gill Shaw of My Showcase

Says Gill: “I did a basic hairdressing and beauty course, but I was more interested in the beauty side. My dream was to be a make-up artist. I had left school with good qualifications, but I didn’t have A-level history, which I needed to go to the BBC to train. I think history was a requirement because of the historical dramas!”

She says: “I’d worked out from an early age that if you wanted something you had to graft for it. I was offered a job working in the cosmetic industry in sales so I took it.”

Gill worked for Mary Quant in London, running the make-up display team selling the company’s products in department stores – as well as getting involved in make-up for fashion shoots.

She moved on to Anita Roddick’s Bodyshop where Gill set up its north-east operation – which meant a return to Sunderland. But a new challenge beckoned which set her on her eventutal career path.

“Bodyshop were starting to go direct into people’s homes and I came out of the stores side,” she says.

“That was my first proper experience doing ‘party plan’ or social retailing as it’s now called. My mum had already done something similar to bring in a bit of extra cash when my dad worked in the shipyard, so it was probably in my DNA!”

Moving to Virgin Cosmetics, Gill was given the opportunity to run its teams in Yorkshire and the north-west as regional managing director and she made her home in Mirfield.

“I was managing a £15m business,” she says. “Many of the girls from the Yorkshire teams became very successfuil business people in their own right.”

After more than 10 years, she left the business last July having risen to sales director. “My role was to get the business developed nationally,” she says.

“But as it grew, I found myself travelling more and more. I had the ‘big 50th’ birthday last year and I decided to leave the business.

“A couple of my colleagues had already gone to My Showcase and I thought maybe it would be a good move for me.

“It was an opportunity to earn a good income, but to work at my own pace. It would also afford me time to spend with my first grandchildren.”

Gill Shaw of My Showcase

Gill and her My Showcase colleagues work with 45 individual brands – taking “ethical, affordable products that make you look good” into customers’ homes or selling online.

Technology is great, but Gill says: “It’s even better doing business face-to-face. If I can get a group of six women together I can create the ultimate shopping experience with a small presentation in someone’s home or at a workplace where people feel at ease.”

Social media also helps. “I have 1,200 or 1,300 people on my Facebook page because I’ve worked at Virgin Cosmetics and Bodyshop.”

Says Gill: “I’m still working hard. My family are still in the north-east, so if I’m going to see them I’ll put my ‘kit’ in the car.

“But it’s different to the corporate world and its pressures. In a big corporation, they will never tell you that you’re working too hard – but they’ll always tell you if they think you’re not doing enough.

“Now I can work to my own diary, work my own hours and make my own rules.”

She says: “I mentor other women to do what I do. I have had some really good mentors in my time – people who have taken me under their wing and said ‘fly with me’.”

Work also has its perks. Gill recently returned from an all-expenses paid trip to Valencia in Spain, courtesy of one of the companies My Showcase promotes. She has also enjoyed a champagne lunch in London with one of the My Showcase founders.

When it comes to time with family, Gill says: “We always go to Spain for Christmas.

“We’d like to spend more time there and the ultimate aim is to move there eventually.

“At some stage, I want to learn Spanish. At the moment, I speak some kind of broken Huddersfield-Sunderland-Spanish.

“I can speak a few words, but then that’s it!”

Role: Founding stylist leader

Age: 51

Family: Partner Mark , daughter Stephanie, 29, and son Tommy, 24

Car: Mini Countryman. It’s possibly the best car I’ve ever driven. It’s a funky, fun car

Holidays: Spain – it’s our chill-out place. We use our house out there as a base to travel around

First job: I helped out in my aunt’s corner shop, but my first proper job was as a Saturday girl at Miss Selfridge in Sunderland

Best thing about the job? Working in a business I love with products that I love and being able to offer opportunities to other women

Worst thing about the job? Some people think this business is really easy, but it’s a tough world out there and there are no guarantees

Business tip: Do your homework first. I have had some really good mentoring with people taking me under their wing. Try to connect with someone in the same business as you – someone who has “walked the walk “

Work: Beauty products

Site: Lepton

Phone: 07787 648884

Email: Tgsmsc50@outlook.comext here

and here and here for a bit.

Facebook: www.myshowcase.com/stylist/gill_shaw