The Purse Podcast

Eva is a digital leader who has pioneered the Internet, e-payments, e-commerce fashion solutions and e-CRM.

Eva co-founded the world's first Internet cafe in 1994.  And she developed fashion web shops for (including) Topshop, Topman, Dorothy Perkins, Racing Green and Burton.

After a successful Crowdcube fundraising campaign in January 2017, Eva joined Bluebella as a non-executive director, overseeing the brand's digital acquisition and international ecommerce strategy.

Since 2013 her ecommerce consultancy The Retail Practice has been advising the largest pan-European lingerie brand Hunkemoller.

In her role as Charity Trustee for Trading Group, Eva has also advised one of the largest UK military charities, Help4Heroes, supporting the charity team since 2013 in their online trading activities on digital acquisition, CRM and transition to new e-commerce platform.

She has recently co-authored  digital retail policy papers on Re-imagining The High Street and a new policy for West End of London in her “Surf and Turf” contribution to a recent  publication commissioned by the Centre for London and New West End Company.

She regularly speaks at key retail industry events run by the Retail Institute and runs a weekly digital innovations blog The Retail Bytes.

Eva is also an active angel investor with a focus on female founders.

We cover the following in our conversation:

• Can you talk to us about the time you set up the world's first internet cafe?
• How has being an entrepreneur shaped how you choose to invest in early stage businesses?
• How do you decide what startup businesses to invest in?
• What are some of the differences in what women and men choose to invest in and how they invest?
• What role do networks play in how you invest?
• What are you excited about in terms of investing in 2021?
• What advice do you have for women who want to engage much more around their money and invest?