After Dinner Speakers: Nicola Foulston, Eddie Irvine, Marti Pellow

Foulston has come a long way in 12 years, since she and her mother, Mary, inherited Brands Hatch when John Foulston, Nicola's father, was killed in a high-speed crash at Silverstone. At the time, Nicola Foulston, then 19, had already given up university to help her father run his racing car company. After his death, she took over her late father's assets and launched a start-up company, while her mother still owned the track itself. Over the years, and during an often-strained mother-daughter relationship, Nicola has gradually won control of the entire business."Any person's death brings enormous pressure. But when you add that to money it becomes enormously complicated," Foulston said. Foulston has inherited her late father's business skills and determination to succeed. John and Mary Foulston were once so poor that as newly weds they used vegetable crates as furniture, but he built up a computer leasing company that made him an estimated Ł40m fortune and enabled him to pursue his love of fast cars. When Brands Hatch was threatened with redevelopment, his wife encouraged him to buy the circuit for Ł5.5m in 1985.His daughter, who was educated privately at the Royal School in Haselmere, Surrey, was determined to turn Brands Hatch into a business rather than an expensive hobby. By developing corporate hospitality and conference facilities at the track, she turned a Ł300,000 a year loss into a Ł1m-plus annual profit in under a decade.Foulston, who has a sister and an adopted brother, regularly worked 14 hours a day to build her business