Karen Hanton


Karen Hanton MBE is a Scottish entrepreneur, known for founding JustAddRed, Toptable and Mortimer & Spinks.

Career

2015

Founded JustAddRed, an East London Incubator.

2000 - 2010

Founded toptable.com Europe’s largest online restaurant booking service listing over 8000 restaurants in 14 countries sold to NASDAQ listed Opentable in 2010 for $55M. Sir Alex Ferguson and Gary Rhodes were shareholders in the company and Karen Hanton was the biggest single shareholder and CEO.
She was awarded an MBE in 2010 for services to the restaurant industry.

1990 - 1996

Founded Mortimer & Spinks an IT recruitment consulting firm sold in 1996 to Harvey Nash listed on the FTSE 250.

1974 - 1984

- Large, privately owned group including 12 department stores and duty-free shops at airports.
Recruited as a trainee in the HR department at William Whiteley’s of Bayswater and subsequently joining and completing a general management training course whilst continuing to focus on HR. Various positions within the group culminating in being appointed Head of HR and Training at Allders of Croydon at the relatively young age of 25. Left in 1984 to pursue self-employment.

Awards

Hanton has received significant public recognition including:
She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2010 Birthday Honours.