Hilary Devey Quotes

102 Hilary Devey Quotes

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[Advice to women.] Don’t be put off by working in a man’s world. Yes it’s hard and yes you have something to prove but there isn’t a glass ceiling. You can go as far and as fast as you want to go. You just have to be tenacious and focused and very disciplined.
Hilary Devey

It’s funny how some scenes stay with you for life.
Hilary Devey

My dad, who’d owned a large central heating company, had gone bankrupt when his main client had gone into liquidation.
Hilary Devey

The truth is, nothing really can shock me.
Hilary Devey

My own son has been battling heroin addiction for years and let me tell you, when you’ve dragged your only child out of sordid drug dens in your pyjamas, you don’t shock very easily.
Hilary Devey

In some respects being successful has turned out to be a bit of a poisoned chalice. You never really know if people are your friends because they like you, or they just like your money.
Hilary Devey

If you asked me now whether all the sacrifices were worth it, I’d say, ‘I don’t really know.’ Many times I’ve looked at my son and thought, ‘Why have I done this?’ In a lot of ways I was happier before I got rich.
Hilary Devey

If you are going to do it, be prepared to make a lot of sacrifices.
Hilary Devey

I’ve made a lot of mistakes – but I needed to make those mistakes. I learned from them.
Hilary Devey

I’ve always lived my life at a phenomenal pace…
Hilary Devey



You can’t go back, can you? You just keep on hurtling onwards.
Hilary Devey

When I set up my business I sold my house, I sold my car. In the first three years I made my first million.
Hilary Devey

My credibility’s on the line here…
Hilary Devey

Every thing I’d got had gone into this venture – my car, my home, everything. Failure, it was not an option.
Hilary Devey

My concept revolutionised haulage overnight.
Hilary Devey

My vision was that we’d be the number one in the sector. And I was quite brave because part of my marketing strategy was then the number one pallet network. And then I had quite a few competitors then try to emulate what I was trying to do.
Hilary Devey

Can you prove that we’re not the number one? We said that we’d be number one, so now we will be number one.
Hilary Devey

I wrote a business plan, I went off to see the bank manager who I think was a total misogynist [Man who hates women], patted me on the head and told me to go home and wash my pots and look after my child. I walked away from that bank even more resolved. And I thought, ‘Hilary, find a solution.’
Hilary Devey

[On the one of the solutions to founding Pall-Ex.] I phoned the estate agent to come out and value the property. We had it on the market by 1:00pm and by the following week I’d sold it.
Hilary Devey

I sold some jewellery and some other bits and pieces and I came up with a hundred and twelve thousand pounds.
Hilary Devey



It took me seven months to get Pall-Ex started… And during that time… I drove approximately 2,000 miles every week visiting every postcode in this country.
Hilary Devey

I rented a flat above a fish and chips shop. Of which the heat switched off when the fat fryer was switched off at night. The windows - you would have half an inch of ice on in the morning. So I tinfoiled all the windows at night before we went to bed. And then I thought ‘Oh my god - my son looks cold as well.’ So I tinfoiled him as well.
Hilary Devey

I eventually launched and got up and running and I launched on the 9th of November 1996…
Hilary Devey

[On having to use two chemical toilets to share with thirty haulage drivers in the beginning of Pall-Ex] I sat cross-legged and learned excellent bladder control.
Hilary Devey

We employ in just Leicester alone three hundred people. [Over 7,500 in the whole company.]
Hilary Devey

I’m actually a millionaire.
Hilary Devey

I left school at 16, and eventually moved to London to work for a company that transported hanging garments. I also met the father of my son, though we split up when he was three and a half.
Hilary Devey

[On Peter Jones and Duncan Bannatyne] Duncan’s a fellow northerner, so I appreciate his no-nonsense approach. And with Peter, I think he has a very dry sense of humour.
Hilary Devey

I’m fun as well as being entrepreneurial.
Hilary Devey

I can be hard when I need to be…
Hilary Devey



I’m certainly no soft touch.
Hilary Devey

By the age of 11, I could run a bar, close it up, stock it up, and reorder new stock. I could take down a letter in shorthand at 110 words a minute.
Hilary Devey

I was bright, but in all honesty, I was kept away from school to help my parent’s business.
Hilary Devey

A man can’t give birth.
Hilary Devey

A man wouldn’t have driven in their pyjamas and coat in the middle of the night [to build their business], as I did.
Hilary Devey

People think that being a millionaire brings you freedom but that’s not true. I have responsibilities, I just can’t pack and go – don’t you think I have a conscience? I need to provide and take care of my people. Next week I have a charity dinner to organise, then agreements to sign, always something.
Hilary Devey

I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody from Goldman Sachs particularly happy – haven’t seen any of them with an outgoing personality.
Hilary Devey

As a single mother, I don’t believe in work-life balance. I had no choice.
Hilary Devey

I don’t have a lavish lifestyle.
Hilary Devey

Money is irrelevant to people’s happiness – if you chase money, it will run away.
Hilary Devey



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