Beauty Founders Jenna Meek and Susie Ma Join Dragons’ Den as Guest Investors

Beauty is moving into the Den. The BBC has confirmed that two of the UK’s most high profile beauty entrepreneurs, Jenna Meek and Susie Ma, will appear as guest Dragons in the forthcoming series of Dragons’ Den, joining the resident panel of Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden, Touker Suleyman and Steven Bartlett, in a line up that also features rapper and investor Tinie Tempah and the return of former footballer turned businessman Gary Neville.

Meek is the co founder and chief executive of REFY, the social first beauty brand launched in 2020 that has grown to reported annual revenues of more than £40 million and secured distribution with retailers including Selfridges and Sephora. She previously built festival beauty label SHRINE, giving her a rare mix of DTC, influencer led and bricks and mortar experience that is now directly relevant to the kind of founders pitching skincare, cosmetics and wellness in the Den.

Ma will arrive in the studio as one of Britain’s most successful self made beauty leaders. She started Tropic Skincare on a market stall at 15, became known to viewers after reaching The Apprentice final in 2011 and later bought out Lord Sugar’s stake to become the company’s sole owner. Tropic has since scaled to around £68 million in annual sales, helped by its emphasis on natural formulations and sustainability, and Ma has featured in the Sunday Times 40 Under 40 list.

Their arrival represents a notable shift in the BBC’s guest casting strategy. Earlier guest Dragons such as Emma Grede, Trinny Woodall and Joe Wicks mirrored consumer trends but the strongest growth in the UK start up scene over the past five years has been in beauty, aesthetics and creator led product businesses. By bringing in two founders who are actively operating in that space, the programme is aligning itself with the kinds of pitches that now dominate small business Instagram feeds and TikTok shops. It also means that a skincare or make up entrepreneur walking into the lift will be judged by investors who spend their working week negotiating with retailers, approving shade ranges, managing influence budgets and monitoring CAC in real time.

Every episode of the new run will feature one of the four guest Dragons sitting alongside the regulars, so viewers will not see Meek and Ma together on screen but across separate recordings. That format, which began when Neville first appeared in 2024, lets producers blend the authority of long running Dragons with the freshness and sector insight of guests. For founders this should translate into sharper questioning on product positioning, regulatory compliance in beauty and the realities of exporting to EU and Middle Eastern retailers, areas that have sometimes been skimmed over in the past.