Rachel Elnaugh became the first female investor to appear on the British series Dragons' Den.
Elnaugh joined the programme during its early years and was one of the original female dragons. She was known as an entrepreneur and businesswoman, particularly for her work in retail and the home-shopping business Red Letter Days.
Her appearance helped broaden the panel’s representation at a time when the show was establishing its public identity. Deborah Meaden later became one of the programme’s most recognizable female investors, but she was not the first woman to sit on the British panel.
This distinction is easy to mix up because dragons have joined, left and returned across many series. The answer concerns the first female investor in the British programme’s history, not the first woman to make a televised investment or the longest-serving female dragon.