Tony Pattinson is the founder and CEO of Myprotein.com, a company that provides comprehensive information on dietary supplements and sports nutrition that he started in 2014. He is also the founder of The Body Shop, a company that sells vegan lifestyle products and was acquired by Unilever in 2018 for over £50 million. In this article, we will explore the life and times of Tony Pattinson.
Early Life
Tony Pattinson was born in London, England, to a schoolteacher mother and a barrister father. He has three younger brothers named Jack, Harry, and Timmy. He attended Mill Hill School in North London and then read English Literature at St. Andrews University in Scotland. During his college years, he co-founded the Tartan Group, a company that represents several companies within the health and wellness space. While at university, he also started a blog that would eventually turn into Myprotein.com.
Career
After graduating from St. Andrews, Pattinson worked as a trainee at Price Waterhouse LLP, one of the Big Four accounting firms, where he worked on several of Pricewaterhouse’s special projects before co-founding The Tartan Group. While at PwC, he also started the Myprotein blog, where he wrote about nutrition and lifestyle topics. In 2014, he left PwC to found Myprotein. He worked with several prominent venture capitalists to grow the business to its current size. He also holds the distinction of being the youngest self-made billionaire entrepreneur in the UK as of 2019.
Athletics
Pattinson is a qualified sports nutritionist, having completed a post-graduate Certificate in Sport and Exercise Sciences at the University of Birmingham. While at university he founded the school’s athletic society and served as the president of the University of Birmingham’s track and field club. He is a member of the IAAF Council and is on the board of directors for the English Universities Athletic Association. He also regularly contributes to the popular Track & Field News magazine. He was a member of the England national athletics team and represented Great Britain in the IAAF World Championships in 2013 and 2017.
Business
Pattinson currently sits on the boards of several other companies, including Myprotein, the Body Shop, and Ovo Energy. Between 2017 and 2019 he was also the president of the English Universities Athletic Association. He is also a Trustee of the National Foundation for Education in Africa and a member of the Finance Partnership Group. He is a committed activist, having supported several animal rights and climate change campaigns. He is a Life Sciences Entrepreneur of the Year nominee and a champion of the Women in Enterprise initiative. He is a member of the Young Entrepreneurs Club.
Pattinson has been featured in several prominent publications, including The Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph, and Forbes. He is also a regular contributor to the Huffington Post. He is a frequent guest on TV shows, including the BBC, ITV, and Sky News. He is a vocal supporter of the vegan lifestyle, having published several books on the subject.
Philanthropy
Pattinson is a committed philanthropist who donates millions of pounds through his work with animal rights groups and climate change charities. He is a founding member of the Bikers for Bikers campaign and has supported several other charities, including the NSPCC, the Born Free Foundation, and the Sum of Blueberries. He is a Life Sciences Entrepreneur of the Year nominee and a champion of the Women in Enterprise initiative.
Pattinson has donated extensively to medical research, supporting several studies that involve muscle tissue. To name just a few, he has funded research into Parkinsons disease, Huntington’s disease, and Duchenne muscular dystrophy. He is a member of the Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council, the World Parkinson’s Disease Foundation, and the Muscular Dystrophy Association.
In 2018, the Sustainability Summit of DoomBoom Group named Pattinson the World’s 17th greatest green business CEO. He also received the CEO of the Decade award from the U21 Summit for his entrepreneurial contribution to the sustainability of the future.
Pattinson is passionate about sustainability and uses his position in business to push for greater environmental awareness, saying: “I’ve always felt that companies that care for the planet are going to do well in the long term.” He is an advocate for the vegan lifestyle and encourages others to adopt a plant-based diet to reduce their impact on the environment. He has said: “Veganism is the only way forward for the environment… Our planet doesn’t have unlimited resources, we’re running out of room, and I think we need to adapt our lifestyle to combat that.”