Dragon Profile - Sarah Newman

Sarah Newman is a dot com millionaire and Ireland's only female dragon.

Sarah left school at 16 with very few formal qualifications and went on to develop a multi-million euro business with Needaroom.com. She moved from her native Essex to Ireland in 1994 and immediately noticed a niche in the hotel market. She realised that most travel agents did not carry a huge range of hotels and most were tied up in package deals. After almost a decade working in the travel industry, Sarah had access to 25,000 hotels worldwide and could offer savings of between 40 and 50 per cent.

She contacted a fledgling airline called Ryanair and convinced them to let her use a desk in their call centre. She sat at that desk six days a week, from 8am to 8pm where she offered hotels to Ryanair customers at massively discounted rates, at the same time running an office from Blackrock dealing with Travel Agents. The hard slog paid off when Sarah negotiated a long term contract with Ryanair based on future hotel reservations. Sales grew at a phenomenal rate, and the company went from a staff of one to 95 people within 10 years and sales of €100 million.

The eventual sale of needahotel.com brought Sarah notoriety for being one of the most successful business women in Ireland. She has retained an interest in the travel industry, and works with 80% of all UK and Irish travel agents with her multi lingual call centre, 7 day a week, based in Glenageary Co Dublin.

Together with her partner, former Kilkenny hurler DJ Carey she also runs a successful Business - DJ Carey Enterprises which will soon launch its website www.djdirect.ie and Sarah hopes to duplicate the success she had with Needahotel.com

She has just finished her latest project - a chalet in Zermatt, Switzerland, named after her daughter Grace - www.chaletgrace.com. The chalet is available for rent in the winter for the ski season, and she is planning a mind, body and soul experience in the summer. This was a passion of Sarah's, one which she plans to extend into Ireland and provide Luxury rental properties for the ultimate getaway

Sarah is also the Lady Captain at the K Club for 2010. Known as the 'Tough' Dragon who has yet to invest, Sarah has promised to be nicer this time around.

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