Charlotte Melia started D&F Creative with 48.50 pounds, a state education and no little black book of contacts. Today she co-leads a multi-award-winning, women-owned live experience studio that designs and delivers events across culture, sport and the workplace. That climb from a standing start to an internationally recognised business has made her a finalist for The Cazenove Capital Entrepreneur of the Year Award at the 2026 Lloyds British Business Excellence Awards.
Engineering live experiences around impact
Melia’s studio operates in the global live marketing and brand experience market from offices in Surrey, Riyadh and New York, and is founder-led from strategy through to delivery. What sets it apart, the business says, is its proprietary Human Impact Method, which engineers live work around a measurable behavioural objective rather than spectacle. According to D&F Creative, that rigour has helped win a client roster since its 2022 pivot to corporate events that includes Meta, Disney, Instagram, Spotify, Wise, LSEG, White & Case, Gillette, McDonald’s and Greggs, sustained by what the company reports as 98 per cent client retention.
An entrepreneur across continents and disciplines
Melia’s achievements extend well beyond a single market. She led D&F, the business says, to become the first double women-founded UK team to open an agency in Saudi Arabia, then scaled the studio into New York. According to the company, she closed 800,000 pounds in angel investment and 1 million pounds in debt finance to fund that growth, and reinvested by funding a three-year PhD with Imperial College London. That research produced what the business describes as the world’s first biodegradable latex formula, now spun out as Bioloon, a university spin-out it says has raised over 1 million pounds pre-seed and was reported by The Times in June 2026.
Purpose alongside performance
That blend of commercial growth and deep-tech innovation has drawn national recognition, including, according to the business, Creative Entrepreneur of the Year at the Great British Entrepreneur Awards, a Micebook award for best DEI initiative, a Business Growth Award at The Dynamic Awards and EY Winning Women 2025. Melia represents UK business internationally as a government trade delegate and, as a founding member of the 93% Club, launched the MadeInStateSchool campaign to widen access to the creative industries. Pairing purpose, diversity and commercial performance in this way is exactly what the entrepreneur category sets out to celebrate. Finalists across the Lloyds British Business Excellence Awards will learn the outcome at Grosvenor House, London on 10 November 2026.
