Siobhan Freegard OBE (born 17 July 1967) is a leading female founder and social innovator focused on creating positive connections in the digital world. Siobhan founded both Netmums.com, the UK’s first social network for mothers and ChannelMum, the UK’s first all-female influencer agency. Siobhan founded her first business,

Netmums Netmums is a website for parents in the United Kingdom, established in 2000. It operates as a network of local sites, and offers information to both mothers and fathers about parenting. The Coffee House web forum launched in 2004 for mothers to ...

, in 2000 and grew it to become the biggest and most commercially successful female-interest website in the UK with a unique network of 151 local websites and 300 national groups for mums to meet offline, alongside 2,300 parent

bloggers A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

and over 8 million unique users each month. Traffic to the site was ahead of Vogue, Cosmopolitan and every other parenting title. In 2011 Freegard and her co-founders sold Netmums to

Axel Springer Axel Cäsar Springer (2 May 1912 – 22 September 1985) was a German publisher and founder of what is now Axel Springer SE, the largest media publishing firm in Europe. By the early 1960s his print titles dominated the West German daily press m ...

-owned French women’s publisher Aufeminin but she remained as Managing Director. In March 2014 Freegard estimated that the business was worth £50 million. In September 2014 Freegard stepped down as Managing Director to start a new content company for mothers, called Channel Mum. Channel Mum was the UK's first all-female influencer agency and is credited with developing the ‘Mumfluencer’ phenomenon after launching the 2015 ‘Vlogstars’ competition. UK TV network ITV took a minority stake in the business at launch. Channel Mum won a number of coveted awards including the 2019 Campaign for Good Awards (Best Use of Celebrity / Influencer) beating British Airways and the UN, The agency also won Content Marketer of the Year 2018 Digiday Europe Awards, Best Team in Influencer Marketing and Best Boutique Agency Bronze Winner at the 2021 IMA awards, Best Branded Content Series with Iceland at the 2018 Digiday Europe Awards and Best Branded Content Series plus Content Marketer of the Year at the 2019 Digiday Europe Awards. In 2019 Freegard’s agency also won the Best In-House Content Team at the UK Content Awards. Channel Mum was sold to M&C Saatchi Social in 2022. An expert in Web 3.0, Freegard is currently consulting for a number of leading AI and Metaverse projects. Freegard was awarded an

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

in the 2013 New Years Honours List for services to families, which was presented to her in March 2014 at Buckingham Palace by

Prince William William, Prince of Wales (William Arthur Philip Louis; born 21 June 1982), is the heir apparent to the British throne. He is the elder son of King Charles III and Diana, Princess of Wales. William was born during the reign of his p ...

. She is also the author of the book ''How to be a Happy Mum'', published by

Headline The headline is the text indicating the content or nature of the article below it, typically by providing a form of brief summary of its contents. The large type ''front page headline'' did not come into use until the late 19th century when incre ...

. Headline published six other Netmums parenting books under Freegard's guidance.

Personal life

Freegard has spoken publicly about the

postnatal depression Postpartum depression (PPD), also called perinatal depression, is a mood disorder which may be experienced by pregnant or postpartum women. Symptoms include extreme sadness, low energy, anxiety, crying episodes, irritability, and extreme cha ...

that she experienced after the birth of her first child, and has campaigned publicly for better support and understanding for mums with postnatal depression.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Freegard, Siobhan Living people 1967 births English women in business Officers of the Order of the British Empire