Rebecca Jane
Most early-stage founders fold when the personal cost arrives. Building a business through divorce, single parenthood and the loss of an earlier company is the kind of story leadership audiences hear about but rarely from the person who lived it. The gap is between the case-study version of resilience and what it actually takes to keep trading.
Rebecca Jane is the founder of The Lady Detective Agency and a speaker who turns her own story of building, running and selling the business into after-dinner content for corporate audiences.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Rebecca Jane
- A founder story that is genuinely unusual: an all-female private investigation firm launched at twenty-four, scaled into national media coverage, and sold in 2018.
- Direct experience of running a consumer-facing business through personal upheaval, including divorce and the collapse of a previous property enterprise.
- A published HarperCollins memoir, The Real Lady Detective Agency, that gives the after-dinner content a documented spine rather than a stitched-together speech.
- Comfort with national audiences from sustained appearances on ITV’s This Morning, BBC Radio, Dragons’ Den and Big Brother, which translates into stage presence in front of large rooms.
Biography highlights
- Founder of The Lady Detective Agency, established 2009, sold 2018.
- Author of The Real Lady Detective Agency: A True Story, HarperCollins, January 2013.
- Pitched on BBC’s Dragons’ Den, Series 10, 30 September 2012.
- Housemate on Channel 5’s Big Brother UK Series 18 in 2017.
- Regular national media contributor: The Daily Mail, Daily Star on Sunday, BBC Radio, ITV’s This Morning.
Biography
The Lady Detective Agency began in 2009 as a one-person operation in Lancashire. Rebecca Jane was twenty-four, recently divorced, and had just lost a property business. The agency went on to become one of the UK’s better-known female-led private investigation firms, with national newspaper coverage and broadcast features following within a few years.
Her 2013 HarperCollins memoir The Real Lady Detective Agency set out the story in book form, including the surveillance work, the honey-trap operations and the personal arc that produced the company. The book is the spine of her speaking material and the source of most of the after-dinner content she now performs for corporate audiences.
Television followed the publishing track. She pitched on Dragons’ Den in 2012, took part in Big Brother in 2017, and remained a regular on ITV’s This Morning and BBC Radio across the decade. The agency was sold in 2018, freeing her to work full-time on speaking, writing and media.
What buyers get is a coherent founder narrative with a sellable arc: a young entrepreneur, an uncomfortable subject matter, a business built and exited, and a ten-year media career on top of it. The content is biographical rather than framework-driven, which is the basis on which to commission her.
Key speaking topics
- Female entrepreneurship and start-up
- Personal resilience and recovery
- Building a business in an unconventional sector
- Media and public profile for founders
- Customer trust in sensitive consumer services
- Selling a founder-led business
Ideal for
- Corporate after-dinner audiences looking for a strong personal story rather than an analytical keynote.
- Women-in-business networks and female founder events.
- Conferences on entrepreneurship, scale-up and exit, where a first-person account is wanted alongside expert speakers.
Audience outcomes
- A first-hand account of what running a small consumer-facing business actually looks like through divorce and reinvention.
- A view of the UK private investigation sector from the inside, including how the agency was built and how it was eventually sold.
- A worked example of how national media exposure can be used by a founder to grow a small consumer brand.
- A motivational close grounded in a documented personal story rather than borrowed material.