page_title: Martha Lane Fox
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Martha Lane Fox / Career
caption_attribution_description: Martha Lane Fox (left) and Robin Lane Fox
context_page_description: Martha Lane Fox, Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho, CBE is a British businesswoman, philanthropist and public servant. She co-founded Last Minute during the dotcom boom of the early 2000s and has subsequently served on public service digital projects. She sits on the boards of Twitter, Donmar Warehouse and Chanel, as well as being a trustee of The Queens Commonwealth Trust. She previously served on the board of Channel 4.
  She entered the House of Lords as a crossbencher on 26 March 2013, becoming its youngest female member, and was appointed Chancellor of the Open University on 12 March 2014. In November 2019, Lane Fox was named as the most influential woman in Britain's digital sector from the past quarter of a century.
context_section_description: Lane Fox showed interest in acting and prison governorship but instead joined information technology and media consulting firm Spectrum, where she met Brent Hoberman. In 1998, Lane Fox and Hoberman founded Last Minute, an online travel and gift business that generated significant publicity, floating at the peak of the dot-com bubble. She stepped down as managing director in 2003. Meanwhile, the company survived the dot-com crash to be bought out by Sabre Holdings in 2005 for £577m.
  Following her departure from Last Minute, Lane Fox was tapped to take over day-to-day operations at Selfridges but was involved in an auto accident before she could assume that role. At the suggestion of advertising executive Julian Douglas, Fox teamed up with Nick Thistleton to launch karaoke company Lucky Voice, which owns seven bars, including a club in Soho and revolutionised the karaoke industry. In 2007, Lane Fox joined the board of Marks & Spencer.
  From 2009 to 2013 she was Digital Champion for the UK and helped to create the Government Digital Service – this team launched gov.uk, and was tasked with spearheading a two-year campaign to improve computer literacy.
  The following year she was assigned to establish the Digital Public Services Unit within the Cabinet Office.
   and invited to sit on the Cabinet Office Efficiency and Reform Board. The following month Lane Fox was honoured by David Cameron for her "Manifesto for a Networked Nation", a challenge to increase British internet engagement. She resigned from her position as Digital Champion in late 2013.
  She entered the House of Lords as a crossbencher on 26 March 2013, becoming its youngest female member. In her maiden speech, she addressed the need for digital literacy in all sectors of the economy. That same year the Open University appointed her Chancellor. In the run-up to the Scottish independence referendum of 2014, Lane Fox signed an open letter opposing Scottish independence.
  In 2017, Lane Fox was appointed a member of the Joint Committee on National Security Strategy. In 2018 she was appointed Non Executive Director of Chanel as well as Donmar Warehouse and a Trustee of the Queens Commonwealth Trust. Lane Fox continues to be a Patron of AbilityNet, Reprieve, Camfed and Just for Kids Law. She joined the board of social network Twitter in June 2016.
caption: Lady Lane-Fox with her father Robin Lane Fox, 2013
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D700", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.5 (Macintosh)", "Image DateTime": "2013:06:20 21:43:54", "Image ExifOffset": "218", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "930", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "12616", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "71/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2013:06:20 18:34:50", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2013:06:20 18:34:50", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "5906891/1000000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "2827819/500000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF SubjectDistance": "42/25", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired, compulsory flash mode, return light detected", "EXIF FocalLength": "28", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "00", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "28", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "2482454", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[28, 70, 14/5, 14/5]", "EXIF LensModel": "28.0-70.0 mm f/2.8"}