Natalie Massenet transformed and changed the world of luxury shopping by bringing it to the world. This was truly recognised when she was made an MBE in 2009.
In June 2010 Net-A-Porter celebrated its 10th anniversary and soon after sold for £350 million to Richemont.
Natalie Massenet, born in 1966 was destinied to be a big name in the world of fashion with her parents a Californian journalist and a British Chanel model. She spent her childhood in LA with her father where he scraped and saved to send her to a private school. She described being surrounded by very wealthy people as giving her the drive and determination to work hard and therefore be successful.
She is perhaps not the conventional woman, describing herself as 'lazy' saying she cuts her own fringe as she doesn't have time to go to a hairdresser.
Women's wear daily in LA was wear her career began.She then progressed to working as Isabella Blow's assistant at Tatler when she was 33. It was here that she came up with the whole idea of Net-A-Porter.
I would describe Massenet as a risk taker having raised £1.2 million with her husband in start up investments for a company that advisers were all forecasting would fail.
The site started in a Chelsea flat filled with stock and iconic black boxes with a team of 15. In 2001 Roland Mouret was convinced to sell his first collection on the site. In 2004 the site first became profitable and Net-A-Porter won an award for best shop at the British fashion awards.
2,000,000 people log onto the site every week with an average spend of £500. Purchases are shown in the West london offices on giant screens which flash up the latest purchases (how much was spent and what was bought) from around the world.
In June 2010 when the company celebrated its tenth anniversary Natalie Massenet revealed her idea to begin working with menswear with the launch of 'Mr Porter'. The British fashion council named her the chairman in September 2012.
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