Retail Entrepreneur & BBC Dragon
Today Theo Pahpitis is recognised as one of the UK’s most charismatic retailers and plays a starring role in the BBC’s runaway success ‘Dragon’s Den’, which sees budding business entrepreneurs present their plans to a panel of experts in an attempt to get investment.
Born in Cyprus, Theo came to England when he was six and by the age of 15 revealed his entrepreneurial flair running a tuck shop at his north London school.
Starting out as tea boy at a City insurance broker, he found his flair for retail as a shop assistant at Watches of Switzerland. Theo returned to the insurance industry in sales at 20, where he discovered his natural ability of pointing out the obvious and applying common sense (which he often points out is not all that common). He became involved in commercial mortgage sales and eventually decided to go it alone.
In no time he was helping businesses in difficulty and this soon became a full time role. He has turned Ryman, Contessa, La Senza and Partners the stationers into successful and profitable retail businesses. He now heads up a 350 store chain and a group turnover approaching £250m. His latest ventures include Red Letter Days, the company he salvaged out of administration with fellow Dragon Peter Jones.
As chairman of Millwall Football Club, Paphitis took them out of administration, saw their first ever official Wembley appearance, and won promotion to Division One as champions! He is perhaps most famous for his attacks on football hooliganism, and guiding the club towards meeting Manchester United in the FA Cup Final in 2004.
Theo’s talks are light-hearted and provocative, offering invaluable and hard-won lessons.