How we broke the glass ceiling

Vardags founder, Ayesha Vardag, spoke to Yahoo Finance alongside a number of female entrepreneurs about her work building up one of Britain’s top family law firms and her efforts to break the glass ceiling for herself and her employees.

Ayesha’s main tip was for budding business owners to be confident in their instincts. She told the website “Trust your instincts, back yourself and be willing to take a leap of faith. You have to be 100% determined to make it work and don’t look back.  You can’t be half-hearted - I spent the first few years after I set up Vardags working hundred hour weeks as a single mother with three small children I had to mortgage our home to get an office building, and sometimes the stress drove me to the edge of breakdown, but I pushed through and it has been, apart from having children, the most rewarding, fulfilling thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

She also advised potential entrepreneurs to work hard and disregard any nay-sayers they encounter.  “Be fearless,” she said.  “Don’t care how the establishment poo-poo you. Set up your own thing in your own individual way and just do it much, much better than all the men who started out looking down on you.  Be more talented, harder working, more committed, more creative, because you care so passionately - once you’re dominating the market they soon change their tune.”

The advice of Ayesha, who built up her business from nothing to the top of family law, will be helpful for passionate entrepreneurs of either gender.