Where Are They Now: Jennifer Davidson, founder of Sleek

The LDC Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders programme has celebrated more than 300 exceptional individuals since its launch in 2018. In this series, we reconnect with some of our alumni to find out what happened next in their growth journey, the impact of being part of the programme, and their ambitions now.

“The last few years have been an interesting ride,” says Jennifer Davidson, founder of Sleek. “Covid was hard but it gave us the opportunity to refine our mission and vision, and we got through it. Now we’ve outgrown our office in Wimbledon, we are expanding in the US, have an entity in the Netherlands, and we have just relaunched as a full-service experience marketing agency.”

Davidson founded her events company in 2015, working out of her spare room. Today, her 43-strong team works with some of the biggest companies in the world, including PayPal and Pernod Ricard. Davidson featured in the LDC Top 50 in 2020. “I’d just completed the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses programme, which gave me the idea to branch out beyond events. At the time, a part of me thought: ‘But why would events just stop?’ Little did we know the pandemic would strike.”

What’s your proudest moment from the past four years?

It has definitely been rebuilding my business after Covid. We had plenty of cash reserves in the business but the pandemic dragged on much longer than we thought. I never lost my drive though and we came back with a vengeance and now the business is double the size it was before Covid.

What’s your passion?

Often talented people think that working in events might be too challenging when they have family commitments. I love being able to help them and prove that they can still succeed at Sleek and make time for their families. We offer flexible working, we are very enlightened around parental leave, and I always encourage my team to go to the school play!

What’s the biggest challenge you face right now?

I don’t see challenges, only opportunities. Right now, we are repositioning Sleek in the market so there are a lot of unknowns, but I find that incredibly exciting.

Where does your resilience come from?

We didn’t have much money when I was growing up, so I have worked since I was 15. I never wanted to say no to things because I couldn’t afford it, and at one point as a teenager I had three jobs. All my life, people have doubted me. I grew up surrounded by naysayers. Over time, negative comments became fuel to my fire: they spur me on.

What’s the secret to building a high-growth business?

Always get advice from outside your industry, so you’re not just following the status quo. And hire people who are better than you. There’s nothing I like better than interviewing someone smarter and more talented than I am.