Pepita Diamand

Pepita Diamand is a former fashion editor and co-founder of Wrapit, the UK’s largest wedding gift list specialist. In addition to the ‘virtual department store’ online, the business now has 15 showrooms across the country and a turnover in excess of £8m.

Born and raised in Toronto, Canada, Pepita moved to Britain to attend St Andrews University, majoring in Economic and Social History. While finishing her MA, she entered Vogue’s Talent Contest for Young Writers and was selected as a finalist from a field of hundreds.

After graduation, Pepita returned to Canada where she pursued her interest in fashion and began writing freelance for the assorted consumer and trade magazines including Chatelaine, Salon, Intro and FIN, where she became Fashion Director & Contributing Editor.

But life back in Europe beckoned, and upon returning to London in 1996, Pepita was offered an opportunity to work in the [then] fledgling field of Internet development; the lure of which was too great for Pepita to resist.

The opportunity was with World Telecom, a dynamic and quickly growing company where Pepita moved swiftly into the role of internet development manager, responsible for the company’s website, web-based calling-card products and Freeserve’s email system, fsnet.

Alas, Pepita’s passion for fashion wouldn’t abate, and so she started looking for opportunities that would marry her internet development expertise with her skills as a writer and her keen eye for style. When a summer of friend’s weddings exposed her to umpteen wedding gift list horror stories, she realised that she’d found it - and so Wrapit was born.

The business is based on a 100 department ‘virtual department store’, supported by a chain of fifteen showrooms around the country. It is the biggest wedding gift list specialist in Britain, with sales of £8m and provides wedding list services for both Fenwick and Liberty.

Her next goal is to turn Wrapit’s huge product range into housewares' answer to 'net-a-porter' by opening its virtual doors to everyone in search of the perfect present. She has developed, in parallel, an online style magazine to make the shopping experience richer.

Wrapit has won numerous awards including “Best E-commerce Business in London”, the prestigious Unysis Customer Service Excellence award, and was given the Chairman’s Choice Award for Exceptional Potential.

Last year, Pepita was chosen as one of the Management Today “35 Women Under 35 to Watch”. And also appeared in the Channel 4 documentary ‘Millionaires’ Mission’, showing successful entrepreneurs helping foster enterprise in Uganda.

Visit the Wrapit website at www.wrapit.co.uk