Lynne Franks Keynote Speaker

Lynne Franks OBE is an author, activist, businesswoman, entrepreneur and PR legend – she has been a trailblazer her entire life.

Lynne is the founder of the SEED – Sustainable Enterprise and Empowerment Dynamics – a provider for women’s learning, economic empowerment and coaching programmes based on her groundbreaking book, The SEED Handbook: The Feminine Way to Create Business.  She is recognised as an iconic changemaker and visionary who has identified and promoted many major diverse changes and lifestyle trends in contemporary society for more many years.    Her public profile keeps her in demand as a public speaker and commentator and she regularly contributes articles for the UK’s top publications, including the Daily Mail and Natural Health Magazine. She maintains a strong presence in social media, on television and in radio, primarily covering subjects about social change, consumer patterns, corporate responsibility and women’s leadership in business and civil society.

Lynne left school at sixteen and worked first as a secretary and then at Petticoat, the UK’s first weekly young women’s magazine. By age twenty-one, with her kitchen table as her office, Lynne started her own public relations agency, ‘Lynne Franks PR’. It grew to become one the most prestigious and successful PR firms in the UK. Lynne was the driving force behind London Fashion Week and initiated high profile campaigns for numerous of fashion houses and celebrities. Her PR business also brought her to work with charities and NGOs. She co-created the world’s largest HIV/Aids fundraiser, Fashion Cares; worked with Bob Geldof to promote Live Aid; chaired the UK’s first women’s radio station, Viva, presenting her own radio show, Frankly Speaking; and created What Women Want, the UK event to draw attention to the changing position of women in society.

After twenty years in public relations, and wanting to branch out into new directions, Lynne sold her agency and became an international spokesperson and facilitator on the changes in today’s and tomorrow’s world – both for the individual as well as the society at large.  She moved to California  in 1997 where she started a ‘new marketing’ agency representing many high profile American businesses, and where her autobiography’ Absolutely Now’ became a best-seller. She admits to being the inspiration of the character Edina Monsoon in the very successful BBC comedy series Absolutely Fabulous, written by her former client Jennifer Saunders, although is confident it is not personal and simply a parody of London and the fashion industry of the ‘80s.

She later returned to the UK and established SEED as a platform for women’s enterprise, training and leadership, resulting in workshops, retreats and events being held in grassroots communities, corporate boardrooms and enterprise agencies around the world. Lynne has also become a voice for the baby boomer generation , writing regular articles as well making her popular TEDx Talk in 2012 “Return of the Wise Woman,” Lynne has authored four books and has remained at the forefront of the movement for social change in society.

She became a founding patron of industry sector leaders Women 1st as well becoming the UK head of 1Billion Rising, a global movement bringing attention to violence against women. She was also responsible for the development of B. Hive, a national network of women’s business hubs, in partnership with the Regus Group.

Her latest project is The Power of Seven, a methodology where women are encouraged and guided how to work together as community leaders to create positive, sustainable change in the world. With this new initiative, Lynne expands her horizons to lay out her vision for an interconnected, sustainable way of living both locally and globally, which she calls ‘Me – We- Us. ‘ Lynne lives in Somerset, England where she has opened the Hub at No 3, a converted 17th century pub, as a wellbeing destination where she collaborates with top holistic educators presenting workshops, retreats and on-line events alongside a cutting-edge healthy café and a number of eco-nurturing bedrooms.

She was awarded an OBE by the Queen in the New Year’s Honour Lists, 2018 for her contribution to business, fashion and women’s empowerment.