Rachel Lowe

Rachel Tanya Lowe MBE (born 1977) is an English board games developer and creator of fashion brand She Who Dares. She attended the University of Portsmouth in order to earn a law degree. As a student she had a part-time job as a taxi driver which is when she came up with the idea of the board game Destination Portsmouth.[1] She continued the idea Destination London, which became one of the top selling games at Hamleys, beating Monopoly and Twister.[1]

For the British film historian, see Rachael Low. For the soccer player, see Rachel Lowe (soccer).

She appeared on the BBC Two television show Dragons' Den in the UK where her pitch for investment was rejected. Despite this, Lowe still launched the Destination game at Hamleys in October 2004.

The Destination game can be made specific to places and events. Destination has now been reworked for London, Paris, Suffolk, Scotland, Norwich - and so on. This appeals to tourists and to locals who like to own a game which puts their locality "on the map". Because riding in a taxi is an experience universal to every city, the game can be tailored to any part of the world.

Lowe continues to develop the game, taking it in different directions. Working independently, she negotiated a deal with The Walt Disney Corporation in order to bring their Pixar CGI characters to one version of the game. This version she calls Destination Animation.

At the end of October 2008, she negotiated with Warner Bros. a deal that enabled her to produce Destination Hogwarts. This fully licensed edition of the game is set in Hogwarts, the school in which J K Rowling set her famous Harry Potter stories. The players are students at the school, amassing House Points on their journeys around it.

Lowe was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2009 Birthday Honours.[2] This was due to her services to business in promoting enterprise in schools, colleges and universities.

RTL Games Ltd went into administration in May 2009. The BBC's Panorama programme featured Rachel Lowe's business problems in Banks Behaving Badly, which explored the causes of the company's failure after problems following the launch of the Harry Potter game, Destination Hogwarts. The bank's refusal to extend funding to cover this delay was considered a crucial factor in the failure of the company.[3]

Lowe now has a new company with Simon Dolan, She Who Dares UK Ltd. Destination Board Games have since been re-acquired and a new brand She Who Dares is due to be released in September 2012. Lowe gained official licensing to launch her Olympics themed Destination London 2012 and junior edition Destination London 2012 Sports in January 2012. Since the creation of She Who Dares UK Ltd, Destination Hogwarts was finally launched on 2 July 2011 at the London Film Museum.[4] The re-release is scheduled for September 2012.

Lowe and Dolan met when Dolan offered investment pots for successful business pitches on the social networking site Twitter, earning himself the nickname Twitter Dragon.[5] She Who Dares was created when Dolan saw sketches of the brand in her flat after she pitched to him on Twitter.[5]

Since losing her company RTL Games Ltd in 2009, Lowe now has two original businesses under her company She Who Dares UK Ltd.[6]

References
  1. Milne, Jamie (2005-01-30). "TV Show loser has last laugh". Evening Standard. Retrieved 2008-03-26.
  2. "No. 59090". The London Gazette (Supplement). 13 June 2009. p. 19.
  3. Tabbitt, Sue (29 October 2012). "Bouncing back from bankruptcy". the Guardian.
  4. "Destination Hogwarts Launched". Portsmouth Enterprise.
  5. "Tweet Me and We Will Make a Net Profit". Daily Express.
  6. "Rachel Lowe, She Who Dares". Management Today.
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