Siobhan Freegard

Siobhan Freegard OBE (born 17 July 1967) is an entrepreneur and parenting commentator. She founded her first business, Netmums, in 2000 and grew it to become the biggest parenting website in the UK with a unique network of 151 local websites[1] and 300 national groups for mums to meet offline, alongside 2,300 parent bloggers and over 8 million unique users each month.

Siobhan is the author of the book How to be a Happy Mum, published by Headline. Headline published six other Netmums parenting books under Siobhan's guidance.

In 2011 Siobhan and her co-founders sold Netmums to Axel Springer-owned French women’s publisher Aufeminin[2] but she remained as Managing Director. In March 2014 Freegard estimated that the business was worth £50 million.[3] In September 2014 Siobhan stepped down as Managing Director to start a new content company for mums, called Channel Mum.

Siobhan was awarded an OBE in the 2013 New Years Honours List for services to families,[4] which was presented to her in March 2014 at Buckingham Palace by Prince William

Siobhan is a regular commentator on parenting issues in the media, with her comments appearing regularly in The Daily Mail, The Sun, The Times and on daytime television shows including Loose Women, BBC Breakfast, Sky News, Lorraine, ITV Daybreak, ITV News and This Morning.

Personal life

Siobhan has spoken publicly about the postnatal depression that she experienced after the birth of her first child[5] and has campaigned publicly on better support and understanding for mums with postnatal depression.[6] Netmums won a contract from the UK government in 2009 to provide professional online support to parents.

References

  1. ↑ "Prince William says he and Kate are fans of parenting website Netmums at investiture ceremony". hellomagazine.com. Retrieved 14 September 2014.
  2. ↑ Freegard, Siobhan. "Netmums the future". www.netmums.com.
  3. ↑ Robinson, Wills. "'One does love a parenting website!'".
  4. ↑ Burns, Judith. "'Netmums' founders awarded New Year's OBEs". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 14 September 2014.
  5. ↑ "Siobhan Freegard: Five things I have learned". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 14 September 2014.
  6. ↑ "Screening for Post Natal Depression". netmums.com. Retrieved 14 September 2014.
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