‘I left school with three GCSEs - now I'm making millions'

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

Ruth Hall left school with just three GCSEs but she always believed she was going to make it. She had her first job at the age of 14, and by time she was 24 was on the board of a finance company.

Ruth, formerly Ruth Badger before she married for the third time, even appeared on The Apprentice in 2005, where she came runner-up. READ MORE: Asda owners Issa brothers in prime position to buy Boots in possible £6bn takeover Now, she runs two businesses in Manchester with a combined annual turnover of £6million - one in the tech sphere, which is typically viewed as male-dominated.

Speaking ahead of International Women’s Day on Tuesday, the theme of which, ‘Break the Bias’ encourages people people to challenge stereotyping, the 43-year-old describes the barriers she's overcome as a woman in business. “I excelled quickly in my career, but at every age, there was a gender issue,” Ruth told the Manchester Evening News. “When I started my career, I was told by two different employers that I couldn’t have the job because I was a girl.

One was working for a truck manufacturer when I was 17, doing admin, but they said no, because I needed to lift parts. Another was a Saturday job in the butchers. “When I was 26-years-old, I had a major shareholder in a Plc tell me that I couldn’t be sales director because I was a young woman, but what was interesting is that within a year I was the sales director.