Lucy Mans and her business, Family Rule, were the 2019 winners of the Goldman Sachs sponsored Military Partner in Business Award, which recognises the unique challenges faced when running a new business or organisation, whilst adapting to the postings, relocations and deployments of loved ones that military partners so often face.
Family Rule is a business with family at its heart. They produce wooden ruler height charts, made from timber sustainably sourced from a local family-run timber yard and are then prepared and finished by a small team of military partners. The business was established by Lucy Mans, whose husband is a Major in the Parachute Regiment, to provide a way for families to take precious memories with them when they moved house. Previously a Marketing Director for Estée Lauder, Lucy wanted to find a way to fulfil her ambitions and continue to improve her business knowledge, whilst providing the flexibility that was not possible in her previous role. Family Rule truly embodies the spirit of this award, they have overcome the challenges of limited budgets and the uncertainty of life as a military spouse; Lucy gave birth to her third child in 2018, just 3 weeks before her husband deployed to Afghanistan and prior to a busy festive season, and the business still achieved their highest Christmas sales to date. They are now in a position where they would like to expand into a studio space and, in the future, will look to offer flexible employment opportunities to the military spouse community. Lucy says:
“My desire to create flexible, collaborative and family friendly job roles will be one thing that will always stay the same. It is why I started the company for myself and it is how I have been able to grow this far with the support of the incredible military community I live amongst.”