The UK’s female entrepreneurship landscape has changed markedly since this article was first published. According to the 2023 Alison Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship, one in five UK companies founded in 2022 had at least one female founder, up from 16% in 2018. Women-led businesses now contribute an estimated £85 billion to the UK economy each year. Yet the gap remains: if women started and scaled businesses at the same rate as men, the UK could gain up to £250 billion in additional economic value.
Shoreditch and the Old Street Roundabout — nicknamed Silicon Roundabout — remain one of the country’s most dynamic startup clusters. The area has matured since the early 2010s, with some original names merging, moving on or closing their physical doors, but the women in Shoreditch tech, media and professional services continue to lead the way. Here are four of them.
Lindsay Pattison — from Maxus to WPP
Lindsay Pattison first made her mark as chief executive of Maxus UK, one of the country’s leading digital media agencies. When Maxus merged with MEC to form Wavemaker in 2017, she helped steer the transition and went on to hold senior leadership roles within WPP. She is now Chief Client Officer at WPP, working with some of the world’s largest brands.
Throughout her career she has argued that diversity is not a side issue but a commercial imperative. In 2016 she launched Maxus’s “Walk the Talk” programme, a two-day initiative that equipped more than 200 senior women with the confidence and skills to advance their careers. Those women then shared their learning with their teams, ultimately reaching around 600 female employees worldwide. The programme reflected her belief that visible senior women are essential to attracting and retaining talent.
Sarah Drinkwater — Google Campus and beyond
Sarah Drinkwater led Google Campus London, the co-working and events space at Old Street Roundabout that became a hub for the city’s startup community after it opened in 2012. Under her leadership it hosted hundreds of talks, training sessions and mentoring programmes, and she became a vocal advocate for greater diversity in tech.
In 2015 she helped launch Girls in Tech, a mentoring scheme that connected women tech leaders with workshops and peer support to help others flourish. Since leaving Google, Drinkwater has continued to back underrepresented founders. She founded Common Room, a community for angel investors and operators, and remains an active angel investor and mentor in the UK startup ecosystem. Google’s physical Campus space in London has since closed, but its alumni network and Google for Startups programmes continue to support UK founders.
Karen Holden — A City Law Firm
Karen Holden founded A City Law Firm in 2009 with just £5,000, frustrated by a legal profession that she felt penalised women — especially mothers — for wanting both a career and a family. Her own background, as the daughter of a single parent who worked multiple jobs, shaped her determination to build a different kind of workplace.
The firm has grown from a solo start-up into a respected Legal 500-ranked practice, advising businesses and individuals on employment, family and corporate law. Holden has kept flexibility and family-friendly working at the heart of the firm’s culture, demonstrating that a people-centred approach can be commercially successful. Her story is a reminder that challenging outdated rules can open doors for working parents across the professions.
Sacha Romanovitch — Grant Thornton to Fair4All Finance
In 2015 Sacha Romanovitch became the first woman to lead a top-tier UK accountancy firm when she was appointed UK chief executive of Grant Thornton. During her tenure she championed a more purposeful model of business, introducing an all-staff profit-sharing scheme and capping her own salary. She stepped down in 2020 and is now chief executive of Fair4All Finance, a not-for-profit set up to improve access to fair, affordable financial products and to tackle financial exclusion.
Romanovitch has long argued that leaders must balance operational detail with long-term vision. She compares it to working on a ship: you cannot spend all your time in the engine room; you also need to climb into the crow’s nest to see what is coming over the horizon. That outward-looking, values-led approach continues to define her work in financial inclusion and responsible business.
These four women are just a snapshot of the senior leaders, founders and CEOs building businesses in and around Shoreditch. The area’s ecosystem has matured since the early “Silicon Roundabout” days, but the need for visible female role models remains as important as ever.
If you are a woman running a business in East London — or thinking of starting one — explore our resources for women in business and add your company to the Prowess business directory.
