Introduction
Scarlett Allen-Horton spent twelve years asking herself a simple question: who am I? The answer had gone missing somewhere inside a long, controlling relationship that took her identity along with it. Today she's the founder of Harper Fox Partners, a global, award-winning recruitment firm, a former Apprentice finalist, and an ambassador for a domestic abuse charity. But the version of that story people see, the awards, the seven-figure business, the two daughters she raised largely alone, sits on top of a much harder one: a teenager who left home at 16, a mother who had her first child at 19, and a woman who built a company in three weeks because there was no other option. This is that story, in her own words.
A childhood built by a single mum and a formidable auntie
Scarlett was raised in inner-city Birmingham by her mother and auntie, both of whom had come from the care system themselves. She describes them as "very, very strong females, very matriarchal," and credits that environment, combined with what she witnessed later in the workplace, with planting an early, deep-seated drive to create change for women and people of colour in senior roles. At 16, after friction at home, she moved into supported accommodation. Money was one of her first constants: a milkman's assistant at 13, a job at 15 that required lying about her age. "I was always a hustler," she says. "Trust me, always, always."
Escaping a controlling relationship and rebuilding an identity
Scarlett is candid that she spent a long period of her adult life in what she calls "a very, very controlling relationship," one that cost her a clear sense of who she was. Her children's father spent close to a decade in prison on drug-related charges, a period she describes as unsafe and unpredictable, never knowing if the police would come, having to move, having to hide where she lived. For years she hid the situation entirely, presenting a different persona at work. "There is a complete persona," she says of that split self. Rebuilding her sense of identity, she says, has been a twenty-year process centred on one thing: "listening to your voice louder than anyone else's."
The Apprentice, the tabloids, and Lord Sugar's blunt advice
Scarlett applied to The Apprentice on a whim, minutes before the deadline, initially hoping Lord Sugar might invest in a business she didn't yet have. The process required her children's father, then in prison, and his probation officer to approve her participation for safety reasons, and she didn't know until close to filming whether she'd be allowed to take part. Being on the show eventually pushed her private history into the tabloids. When it did, Lord Sugar called her directly: "He says, right, I'm seeing what the papers are saying, Scarlett, what are we going to do about it? Straight down the line... He went, no, you've got to make it on your own merit, it is what it is." She says that conversation helped her finally own a story she'd spent years hiding, particularly for the sake of her daughters.
Building Harper Fox Partners from a kitchen table, three weeks at a time
Before founding Harper Fox Partners, Scarlett worked for a small recruitment business whose owner offered her half the company within an afternoon of her outlining a twelve-month plan to eventually go it alone. She soon uncovered serious tax problems within the business, unrelated to her, and negotiated her way out within a month. That exit, painful at the time, became the catalyst. With three weeks of money to cover her bills and nothing after that, she built a website, wrote her own copy at three in the morning, and won her first piece of business, a £20,000 deal, within three weeks. "That kept us going for like four or five months," she says. Harper Fox Partners was born, and the client who gave her that first assignment is still a client today.
Pivoting through the pandemic: from panic to a new sector
When the pandemic hit, 90 percent of Harper Fox Partners' business disappeared almost overnight. "Panic is not a word that I would associate myself with at all," she says. "Pivot was the word that I used instead of panic." The firm moved into energy and recruitment for the renewables sector, a decision that became, in her words, "the best move that we made," now driving significant growth for the business. Her framing of entrepreneurship is practical rather than inspirational: "A lot of entrepreneurship is actually about problem solving. How do we make it happen?"
Hyperfunctioning: turning trauma into high performance
Asked how she managed to keep winning industry awards while privately navigating a difficult relationship and single motherhood, Scarlett names a concept she'd only recently learned: hyperfunctioning, a positive byproduct of trauma where high performance in one area of life becomes a kind of escape from what's happening in another. "You are really high performing in other areas of your life," she says, "and you often will find people that are very high performing, there's something that's really driven that." She traces her own drive to three sources: a scarcity mindset formed by not having money, years of competitive swimming that taught her to push through discomfort, and a home life she wasn't in control of.
Motherhood as leadership training
Scarlett credits much of her leadership style to lessons learned as a young mother, not as a corporate professional. "If I shout at my daughter, she's going to shout at me. If I speak to her with respect, she's going to speak to me with respect," she says, describing the same principle governing how she treats her team at Harper Fox Partners. She also points to an early career moment, taking over a team of fifteen women while pregnant at 19, as teaching her that credibility and respect, not authority, are what get the best out of people.
Grace, self-worth, and building Scarlett Lily beyond the business
With her eldest daughter turning 16, the age Scarlett left home herself, she's found herself extending a kind of retrospective kindness to her younger self. "You really are a child, still trying to do a lot of adult things," she says. Grace, she admits, is something she's actively working on. Alongside Harper Fox Partners, she has recently launched a personal brand under her own name, Scarlett Lily, focused on keynote speaking, coaching and mentoring, particularly for women and women of colour navigating similar journeys. "I really feel like I want to do more, and I want to give more beyond Harper Fox Partners," she says.
