Anita Roddick

Dame Anita Lucia Roddick was an English entrepreneur, human rights activist, and environmental campaigner, born Anita Lucia Perilli on October 23, 1942, in Littlehampton, West Sussex, and died on September 10, 2007, in Chichester after a brain hemorrhage linked to hepatitis C. The daughter of Italian immigrants who ran a café, she trained as a teacher before traveling extensively in Polynesia, Africa, and the Middle East, where she observed indigenous skin and hair care practices that later inspired her business.

In March 1976 she opened the first branch of The Body Shop in Brighton, selling naturally inspired cosmetics in refillable containers. The shop expanded through a franchise model into a global retailer with more than two thousand outlets across over fifty countries by the early 2000s. Roddick took the company public on the London Stock Exchange in 1984, and its share price tripled on the first day of trading.

She used the brand as a platform for activism, partnering with Greenpeace on Save the Whales campaigns, with Amnesty International on human rights, and with the Ogoni people of Nigeria following the 1995 execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa. The Body Shop was an early adopter of fair-trade sourcing through its Community Trade program.

Roddick was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1988 and Dame Commander in 2003. In 2006 she sold The Body Shop to L'Oréal for £652 million in a deal that drew criticism from some activists; she pledged the proceeds to charity.

The name Anita is a Spanish diminutive of Ana, the Iberian form of Hannah, from the Hebrew ḥannāh meaning "grace" or "favor." She wore it as a woman who fused commerce with conscience.