Delighted Shifnal salon owner Deborah Mitchell shows off her Stevie award

A Shropshire beautician who grew a £10 bag of nail extensions into a £10 million-a-year venture has won the world’s most prestigious business gong.

Deborah Mitchell was named as entrepreneur of the year with a firm of less than 100 employees at a star-studded ceremony in New York. Mrs Mitchell’s beauty firm Heaven makes the natural botox alternative Bee Venom,

The 46-year-old was presented with a Stevie, annual awards made to women in business in recognition of ‘outstanding performance in the work place worldwide.’

The mother-of-two’s salon is based in Shifnal and counts the Duchess of Cornwall, Victoria Beckham, Simon Cowell, Gwyneth Paltrow and Michelle Pfeiffer among its clients.

She said today: “This is the best women’s business award in the world and I was bowled over to win it.

“The wife of Bill Gates also got a honorary Stevie.

“I had no idea I was going to win and so when they called my name I was so excited that instead of saying the usual stuff I just said ‘Thank you to the bees’ and started crying.

“It will have a huge knock-on effect on my business. It is setting me up in America. We were not going to go there yet because we are busy getting established in Taiwan and China.”

Mrs Mitchell started work as a mobile beauty therapist with a £10 packet of nail extensions after leaving Telford College at the age of 18.

She then took salon space in two hotels before setting up in Shifnal 14 years ago where she now employs 61 people at her base and production plants in Shifnal and has other outlets in Taiwan, China, Cyprus, Gran Canaria, South Africa, Dubai and Singapore.

On her award-winning product, she said: “Although it has got bee venom and other things that are properly listed, there is also an X factor that means it cannot be copied.”