Reading entrepreneur ranked third richest beauty founder in southeast
A Reading entrepreneur has been named one of the richest beauty founders in the southeast.
According to the Sunday Times Beauty Rich List 2025, Ama Amo-Agyei has made it into the top 30 richest hair, beauty, and makeup entrepreneurs in the UK.
The Ghana-born entrepreneur, who lives in Reading, established her natural haircare business, Plantmade, with just £100 after being made redundant at the start of the pandemic.
She is now worth an estimated £10 million.
Having experienced hair loss herself, Ms Amo-Agyei began her venture by researching and creating natural remedies.
Her success story is one among many on the list, which celebrates individuals who have built their wealth from a variety of beauty products and services.
The southeast region's richest beauty founder is Vishal Karia, who set up his wholesaler business, Affinity Fragrances, in 2016.
His company has become a key player in the beauty industry, supplying scents, skincare, and cosmetics to high street chains, supermarkets, and online retailers.
His wealth is estimated at £114 million.
Second on the southeast list is Daisy Kalnina, who is worth an estimated £70 million.
She founded her company, The Gel Bottle, in 2017 from her spare room in Brighton.
It has since become the UK's fastest-growing nail polish brand and an official supplier to London Fashion Week.
With a combined wealth of £2.174 billion, the 30 entrepreneurs on the Beauty Rich List, who range in age from 27 to 84, have all made significant contributions to the beauty industry.
Robert Watts, the list's compiler, said: "There are so many inspiring people with rags to riches stories here.
"Our beauty list includes someone who came to the UK as a child refugee, another who was homeless and camping in woodland during his teens.
"There are others who left school with few or no qualifications to their name, one who was expelled.
"We have entries who suffered hair loss and very serious skin conditions that led them to create their own treatments which they later started to sell."
He added: "All these people went on to build successful beauty brands making products people love, creating jobs, contributing decent sums to the public finances and of course making many of us look and feel a lot better along the way."
Phoebe McDowell, beauty and interiors director of the Sunday Times, said: "Beauty is big business, and this inaugural list demonstrates the power of creativity and innovation in the sector.
"These entrepreneurs have not only built brands but changed the way we think about hair, makeup, and skincare."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Trump has no plans to call Musk, White House says after feud
The White House squashed speculation that Donald Trump and Elon Musk would patch up their stunning public feud, saying the US president had no plans to call his billionaire former aide Friday. Trump lobbed fresh insults at the South African-born Musk a day after the fiery implosion of their unlikely political marriage, saying the tech tycoon had "lost his mind." In a telling symbol of how their relationship had deteriorated, the president was even considering selling or giving away a Tesla he had bought to show support for Musk amid protests against the company. The row exploded on Thursday when Trump said he was "very disappointed" by Musk and threatened to end his government contracts, after his ex-aide criticized the president's flagship budget bill as an "abomination." Reports had emerged that Musk and Trump would speak by phone on Friday in a bid to patch up the damaging public row, but the White House scotched such speculation. "The president does not intend to speak to Musk today," a senior White House official told AFP on condition of anonymity when asked if the feuding pair planned to speak. Trump told broadcaster ABC in a phone call earlier Friday that he was "not particularly interested" in talking to Musk. "You mean the man who has lost his mind?" ABC quoted Trump as saying. Trump, who once called Musk a "genius", branded him "crazy" on social media on Thursday. - Fallout - The row could have major political and economic fallout, as shares in Musk's Tesla car company seesaw and the SpaceX boss vowed that he would end a critical US spaceship program. The White House called a special meeting on Thursday to discuss how to handle the crisis with Musk, a government source told AFP on condition of anonymity. Trump meanwhile may ditch the red Tesla that he bought from Musk's firm at the height of their relationship. The electric vehicle was still parked on the White House grounds on Friday. "He's thinking about it, yes," the senior White House official told AFP when asked if Trump would sell or give away the Tesla. Trump and Musk had posed inside the car at a bizarre event in March, when the US president turned the White House into a pop-up Tesla showroom after protests against Musk's government role tanked the firm shares. Speculation had long swirled that a relationship between two big egos like the president and the tycoon could not last long -- but the speed of the meltdown took Washington by surprise. Trump said in a televised Oval Office diatribe on Thursday that he was "very disappointed" after his former top donor criticized his "big, beautiful" spending bill before Congress. The pair then hurled insults at each other on social media -- with Musk even posting, without proof, that Trump was referenced in government documents on disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. dk/bgs
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trump may get rid of his Tesla after Musk row: official
Donald Trump may now offload a Tesla he said he bought earlier this year in a show of support for Elon Musk, a White House official said Friday, following a blazing row between the US president and his billionaire former advisor. The red electric vehicle, which retails for around $80,000, was still in a parking lot on the White House grounds on Friday, an AFP reporter said, a day after the very public meltdown between Trump and the South African-born tech tycoon. "He's thinking about it, yes," a senior White House official told AFP when asked if the Republican would sell or give away the Tesla. Tesla stocks had tanked more than 14 percent on Thursday amid the row, losing some $100 billion of the company's market value, but leapt back in early trading Friday. Trump, who does not drive as a president, said he was buying the Tesla in March to boost support for his mega-donor, whose brand -- and bottom line -- has been hit hard by public outrage over his role in slashing US government jobs. At a choreographed publicity stunt that turned the White House into a pop-up Tesla showroom, Trump praised the EV as a "great product" and lashed out on social media at "Radical Left" attacks against the world's richest person and his company. Trump's Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and another senior aide posed in the car as recently as last week, in a photograph posted on Musk's social media network X. "Taking President Trump's Tesla out for a ride," Trump's communications advisor Margo Martin posted. But the shiny red vehicle has now become an awkward symbol of the fiery political divorce between Trump, 78, and former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) chief Musk, 53. Trump said he was "very disappointed" by Musk and threatened to end his government contracts after his ex-aide criticized the president's flagship budget and policy mega-bill as an "abomination." dk/sms
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trump's attacks on international student enrollment could ultimately shake the economy
The Trump administration's statements and actions aimed at curtailing the number of international students in the US have sent a chill of uncertainty through higher education institutions. These American schools have become more reliant on the higher tuition paid by international students as state and federal support has waned. Now, their financial viability could be shaken. That could have a negative impact on US-born students seeking a college education, and economists and researchers warn that the ripple effects could extend well beyond the lawns of college campuses: A drop-off in international students could reverberate through the US labor market and broader economy in years to come. 'The skill premium, as we call it, is very large, which is why highly educated workers earn so much more,' said Michael Lovenheim, a labor economist and professor at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations. International students, he added, 'generate not only returns to themselves through higher wages, but they work in sectors that generate economic growth, they start businesses, they work in high-growth areas that generate more productivity and increase [Gross Domestic Product].' And that economic impact, he said, is 'positive and large.' During the 2023-24 academic year, 1.1 million international students were credited with supporting 378,175 jobs, half of which were at colleges and universities and the rest being in other sectors such as housing, food service, retail, transportation and insurance, according to NAFSA: Association of International Educators. All told, that amounted to a record-high economic contribution of $43.8 billion, according to the member-based organization. Reducing enrollment or hurting international students' desire to study in America, he added, will 'lessen our economic competitiveness in the medium run and maybe the long run as well, depending on how things play out.' The Trump administration's efforts to limit international students have already affected the Global Migration Center, an interdisciplinary research center at the University of California, Davis, said center director Giovanni Peri, an economist and UC-Davis professor who has researched the economic impacts of international migration. 'The new cohort of students that are coming (from other countries), we've already lost a few of them because of the uncertainty of the funding and the visa that we're providing,' Peri told CNN in an interview. 'A couple of people who were from Europe decided to go to England.' And the international students currently conducting research at the center are experiencing hardships as well, he added. 'They are really struggling with their funding; they are not traveling internationally. A couple of my students could not go to international conferences in the last couple o f months because they were worried they would not have been able to come back' because of worries they'd get stopped at the border, Peri said. The research itself, he added, has become harder with reduced funding. 'It took a long time for the US to establish itself as, by far, the strongest university environment in the world,' he said. 'But things change, and things can change in a more permanent way.' If international students elect to instead study in Canada, Europe, Australia or other regions, that loss will ultimately damage the US economy, he said. 'The rate at which foreign students create firms in the United States after graduation is about four times as large as the rate at which Americans create,' Peri said, citing his research on the topic. 'So, there will be fewer companies created. There will be fewer scientists and engineers to fill other companies in the US; there will be less growth of companies, jobs, and lower income in many local economies.' The potential business generation effect already is hampered by immigration restrictions or challenges, Peri noted. In an earlier study, he and his colleagues found that because of immigration and visa restrictions, only 20% of international US Master's graduates remained in the US and worked for at least two years. There have been legislative proposals to give a green card to students who earn a degree in the US (a policy that Trump publicly supported), Peri said, adding that 'not only this has not happened, but we have made several steps in the opposite direction.' 'This is now a completely different world, but this idea of students who study in the US should be able, if the company makes an offer, to have a visa had such a consensus that was so broad and so bipartisan,' he said. 'Because everybody saw that the US helped these students and this human capital to be created and that some of the benefits could stay in the US if there is an option.' If the Trump administration's policies and approach toward international students don't change significantly, these negative consequences could be felt in the broader US economy in two to three years, he added. Not excusing the 'brutality' of the Trump administration's approach, recent events could drive a meaningful debate around the internationalization of the American student body, David Bell, a history professor at Princeton, wrote Tuesday in a New York Times opinion piece. Bell noted that 1.1 million international students enrolled in the 2023-2024 school year — four times the enrollment 45 years ago. 'Like many large social changes, this one happened without much conscious planning or debate,' he wrote. 'Foreign students kept applying in ever greater numbers, and universities happily admitted them, since non-Americans receive merit- and need-based financial assistance at much lower rates than Americans do. It has taken Donald Trump's crude and vengeful swipe at Harvard to draw much attention to the subject.' In a follow-up interview with CNN, Bell noted the potential trade-offs with expanding international enrollment: On one hand, universities can serve as engines for future economic growth and further global relationships; on the other hand, universities potentially could fall short when serving homegrown applicants. 'The past couple of decades, the trend has been very, very strongly toward a steady increase in the number of international students, and I think it may be worth asking whether we should be continuing with that increase, or should we keep (enrollment) at the current level or even decrease the level of international students slightly,' Bell said. 'Not doing anything precipitous, not doing anything brutal as the administration seems to be attempting to do, but simply keeping an eye on the situation and recognizing the trade-offs.'
