When Maxine Laceby started Absolute Collagen from her kitchen table aged 50, with no business experience, she had no idea it would become the multi-million-pound wellness brand it is today. Absolute Collagen was named 4th in The Sunday Times Hundred and Maxine has been awarded a Natwest Everywomen award amongst others. Integrity and giving back in all areas are inherent to Maxine personally and professionally, and why she became a patron of the Prince's Trust in 2021. From her humble beginnings living on a council estate with a single mother to her ADHD, which she sees as her superpower.
Highlights
"I was brought up on a council estate in the seventies in Bath and we were the wrong side of the council estate. My mother was an alcoholic and nobody really liked us."
"I stripped myself bare and let my hair go grey... I wore no makeup for four months and I wore really, really dowdy clothes for that period of time and what that made me realise what Dare to Go Bare was all about."
"I started making and drinking my own bone broth and I just had this most amazing sense of wellbeing and that really was the start of the whole journey back in 2015."
"I knew it was the collagen that was making the difference and it was the collagen, liquid collagen supplement I wanted."
"I was the Number 1 consumer, I was the Number 1 Absoluter – that's what our consumers call themselves, ‘Absoluters’. And the focus now is not about me, it’s about them."
"I adored my mum. I’m adopted. I never, ever, ever felt adopted. I knew I was loved. I also knew I was needed."
"I was able to walk into any situation and know who I could trust. But I had to learn that skill."
"I do have a purpose and my purpose is to empower women to be themselves regardless what that looks like."
"I don’t know what the future holds and I quite like that and I think let’s just see. There is no plan and I like that too."
"I’m a patron of the Prince’s Trust and I work with their Young Enterprise and I often say to some of the kids there that have got really terrible backgrounds, 'I know you don’t feel this yet but the skills you’re learning are huge.'"