During the week, my time is very structured and I usually work from 8am to midnight on my online jewellery business, My Flash Trash. So at weekends I like to be more spontaneous.
Usually I’ll spend two weekends out of four going abroad for a photo shoot or a quick break, but when I am in London I like to catch up with friends. I aim to leave the office about 6pm on Fridays and I’ll go straight to Soho House [a private members’ club in central London] to meet friends for drinks on the roof terrace. I have a broad range of friendship groups, including people in fashion, stylists and jewellery designers, and recently I’ve got to know a number of entrepreneurs like myself. I chat about who is doing what, the latest cool thing, tech trends and venture capital.
On an alternative Friday evening I might go along to Silicon Drinkabout, a networking event where people involved in start-up businesses meet at a different venue each week. It was started by my friend Michael Acton Smith, who launched Moshi Monsters, an online world for children. I like motivating people, and I’m keen to encourage youngsters to set up their own businesses, and I’ve already spoken at loads of schools and conferences to try and encourage people to realise that anyone can get a start-up going, regardless of the economy.
After drinks I often eat either at Ceviche, a Peruvian restaurant, or Cecconi’s in Mayfair, which is Italian. I share a flat in Bloomsbury with my younger sister Yasmin, who is studying physics at university, but on Fridays I usually go back to my boyfriend’s house in Notting Hill. I didn’t want a relationship as I thought it would distract me too much from work, but that changed when I met George [Birch] two years ago. He’s my age and is currently an undergraduate at Edinburgh University. I couldn’t be with someone who wasn’t ambitious, but luckily he is, and his specialist field is renewable energy and pharmaceuticals. When we started going out I told my parents that the relationship had long-term growth potential. They couldn’t believe I was looking at it as an investment.
Although I’m only 22, I’ve been involved in business as far back as I can remember. I was born in Hong Kong. My father [Wayne] was a pilot for Cathay Pacific, and both he and my mother, Jane, encouraged me to work for myself. They bought me books on how to succeed and I started my first project, which was selling books and CDs online, when I was nine. My school friends were a bit intimidated because while they all had Barbie dolls, I had a Barbie computer game and had started to learn about computer coding and programming
