Karen Hanton

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

is a Scottish entrepreneur, known for founding JustAddRed,

Toptable Toptable (styled toptable) was an online restaurant booker covering the UK as well as major cities in Europe and New York City established in 2000 and bought by OpenTable in 2010. History Toptable was founded in 2000 by entrepreneur Karen Hant ...

and Mortimer & Spinks.

Career

2015

Hanton founded JustAddRed, an East London incubator.

2000 - 2010

Hanton founded toptable.com, Europe's largest online restaurant booking service, listing over 8000 restaurants in 14 countries. It was bought by the NASDAQ listed

Opentable OpenTable is an online restaurant-reservation service company founded by Sid Gorham, Eric Moe and Chuck Templeton on 2 July 1998 and is based in San Francisco, California. In 1998, operations began with a limited selection of restaurants in S ...

in 2010 for $55M. Sir Alex Ferguson and Gary Rhodes were shareholders in the company, and Hanton was the biggest single shareholder and CEO. She was awarded an

in 2010 for services to the restaurant industry.

1990 - 1996

Hanton founded

Mortimer & Spinks Mortimer () is an English surname, and occasionally a given name. Norman origins The surname Mortimer has a Norman origin, deriving from the village of Mortemer, Seine-Maritime, Normandy. A Norman castle existed at Mortemer from an early point; ...

, an IT recruitment consulting firm sold in 1996 to Harvey Nash, listed on the FTSE 250.

1974 - 1984

Hanton then worked at The Allders Group, a large, privately owned group (the Lyons family) including 12 department stores and duty-free shops at airports. She was recruited as a trainee in the HR department at William Whiteley's of Bayswater and subsequently joined and completed a general management training course whilst continuing to focus on HR. She held various positions within the group (all HR and Training), culminating in being appointed Head of HR and Training at Allders of Croydon (c2000 staff) at age 25. She left in 1984 to pursue self-employment.

Awards

Hanton has received significant public recognition, including: * 2015 - Named in the top 50 most inspiring women in tech in Europe * ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

''/Moet Hennessy Extraordinary Achievers Award * Named as one of today's top 30 entrepreneurs in ''New Business Magazine'' * Named one of the top 100 most influential people in the first decade of the internet in an NOP/e-consultancy poll She was appointed

Member of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(MBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hanton, Karen Living people Year of birth missing (living people) British businesspeople Members of the Order of the British Empire