Back in the early nineties, Jan Cavelle found herself a single parent with two very young children.

Not only was she a single parent, but a very broke one, in fact, she was struggling by on income support. She had been neither educated nor trained to do anything remotely career orientated but all of a sudden, she had to find a way to make ends meet for the three of them.

She had some telephone sales experience from a succession of temping positions and some knowledge of furniture and interior design. It seemed a practical option to put the two together and sell furniture from home while looking after her children at the same time.

Taking a huge deep breath, and in what appeared to be a moment of total madness, she refused the sensible options of going out to a job, and set up an office on a shelf under the stairs at home! The only technology at her disposal was a phone, a fax machine (some degree of nerve!) but absolutely no money.

The Jan Cavelle Furniture Company was born!

The early years were a complete gamble from day to day. A leaflet type brochure was bought on her one remaining credit card. Yellow pages were used for addresses and stamps were bought out of her weekly income.

Growth was very gradual and finishing the furniture to a standard she considered acceptable became an immediate problem, so she set up a small spray shop in an old farm just down the road.

After a difficult start, she slowly began to make ends meet and things ticked over for a few years in a small way while she was able to enjoy quality time with her children.

They say there is always an element of luck in business, and it could not have been more true in Jan's case. Just at the point her children were old enough to be a little self sufficient, what initially appeared to be a major crisis, hit. The owner of her main furniture supplier arrived on her doorstep announcing that he was shutting down that very day.

For anyone else, this may have signalled the end of the road. Jan however, credits 'pure bloody mindedness and determination' for her success, which at this point, they came into their own as, taking another deep breath and an enormous gamble, she bought the owner out and overnight had two tiny cottage industries to run!

In 2000, she merged both small groups into a factory in Haverhill and hasn't looked back since. The company has expanded by between 30 and 50% every single year.

Testiment to Jan's perseverance under initially extremely challenging circumstances, she has won many awards over the years both personally and for the company including;

- 'Anglian Business Person of the Year'

- The Institute of Directors 'East of England Enterprise Award'

and currently

- Direct Line - Decade of Excellence Award at The National Sales Awards 2009 Awarded by Stephen K Amos

Jan now takes great pride in being able to inspire other women to take the bull by the horns and use their determination to succeed. A keen speaker, magazine and radio contributer, she has become media and PR savvy in an ever-changing world, meaning she continues to keep up with her escalating performance standards.

Her motto is simple, 'If I can do it, so can you!'.