When Worlds Collide #82: Anita Roddick: Mixing activism, business and compassion

Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today Sunday broadsheet newspaper on 8 September 2013

“Remember me!”

With those words — and with a mischievous smile — entrepreneur and activist Anita Roddick (1942 – 2007) once autographed a book for me.

You’re hard to forget, I told her. Indeed, the maverick founder of The Body Shop is one of the most unforgettable persons I have met in a quarter century of global travels.

Our two close encounters — a dozen years apart, and on two continents – are among my precious memories.

When Anita died six years ago this week, aged 64, media obituaries described her as one of the world’s most successful women entrepreneurs and also as the ‘Queen of Green’.

She was much more than just green. We remember her as a formidable one-woman cheering squad for a range of social, humanitarian and environmental…