'My grandfather headed a real estate dynasty and my father runs a hotel firm - but I'm on my own mission' Less than 20% of all active UK companies are led by women, and the pace of new business registrations is slowing down. That's according to analysis of Companies House data by Prowess, which also found women-led companies receive only 5.8% of all investments. In this series, we hear from women who are bossing it in their respective fields as they tell us how they've overcome challenges and how others could do the same. This week, live Money reporter Jess Sharp has spoken to Abigail Tan, chief executive of St Giles Hotels Group... "I loved the smell of a hotel. Everything about it interested me." That was Abigail Tan's first memory of a hotel. She was a young girl in Malaysia and had been taken on a trip by her parents. "Instead of spending all my time out in the beach or in the pool, I liked to jump up on the housekeeping trolleys to see what I could steal. Shampoo really interested me," she laughs. In hindsight, her seemingly odd interest turned out to be a good thing. With her grandfather running one of Malaysia's real estate dynasties and her father now the managing director of the IGB Corporation, the parent company of St Giles, her path into the hotel business was almost fated. But that doesn't mean it's been easy. Along the way, Abigail has dealt with racism, conflict and still managed to grow St Giles into a company that operates eight hotels in five countries - and has two more in the pipeline. She says her first "adult experience" of the business was during her summer breaks, when she would travel from Exeter, where she was studying at the time, to London, to sit in on meetings. "That's when I started work here at the hotel, and realised that it wasn't time for me to go back to Malaysia yet. 20 years later, I'm still here." 'The baptism of fire' One of her first projects involved the buying and rebranding of one of their hotels in New York, which she describes as her "baptism by fire". Thrown in the deep end, she was 24 having to rebrand an entire hotel, working to find suppliers, hiring a new general manager and replacing everything inside the former W hotel. "I was still very junior... and it was challenging because New York is a completely different animal, different culture and a different way of hospitality," she says. One of the most difficult situations in the American city was with labour unions. "We shut one hotel down for renovations and they didn't like that we weren't using union staff. For about seven months, they camped outside our operating hotel," she recalls. Some of them inflated three-storey high rats bearing her father's face, while others covered the ground in messages that told her family to "go back to Malaysia". "They would sound horns and shouting in the streets. It was very chaotic for me, for staff and for customers. It was quite intimidating," she adds. "They really tested my boundaries as a woman in the industry. There was a lot of conflict." 'I'm not the perfect leader but I want to make a difference' For the rest of her 20s, she spent almost six months of the year travelling back and forth between London and New York to work on the hotels, before becoming chief executive in 2018. "It's like being the conductor in a big orchestra, which means I needed to I know who I am as a leader and how the movements I make impact the team," Tan says. "I'm not the perfect leader. We all make mistakes. We are only human." Despite being part of the minority of female Asian chief executives, Tan says she doesn't view herself as such and has tried to carve the way for other women to follow in her footsteps. Sixty percent of St Giles's executive board and 80% of its department heads are women. "Women need more of a voice and more representation. I went to a hotel conference many years ago and it was just all middle-aged white men in suits. I was just like, 'how can we create more inspirational experiences?'" Throughout the industry as a whole, she says, there should be more Asian representation. "Having a mix of experiences and cultures is always a good think. There are lots of brands here now that are from Asia but we need to have more Asian leaders here in Europe." Her mission to help the homeless Tan's aspiration to make change doesn't stop with inspiring women, she has also launched a charity initiative to help homeless people enter the workforce. Hotels with Heart provides rough sleepers with a place to stay, access to a four-week training programme and guaranteed job interviews once they complete it. "The future is not about me, it's about who comes after me and who comes after that. I'm really proud of the academy. Everyone deserves a chance to grow and find a livelihood," she says. "You can see all their confidence come back. It's like seeing a flower bloom." 'Learn to navigate conflict and read this book' One of the keys to Tan's success is being authentic and she says you have to set out your values and stick to them in every situation to be a great female business leader. "If you are being your true self, it's easier to run a business because people can feel if you are being authentic," she says. She also advises that you learn how to navigate conflict and communicate through it effectively. "A really powerful book about this is called the Culture Map. It showed you how different cultures communicate so differently. "Some cultures want you to be more direct, some indirect and you don't want me to end up making someone angry." A key part of this, she explains, is learning to apologise if you have made a mistake and holding firm if you believe you are right. "If you think you have done something wrong, face it and lead with humility and kindness... but also if someone has done something wrong, you must be able to face the person and say that don't think it is right."