Martha Lane Fox: From Lastminute.com to the House of Lords

The British entrepreneur who went from an internet start-up to business boards, public service and a seat in Parliament.

Business Blog Media Editorial TeamSeptember 12, 2026

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Martha Lane Fox British entrepreneur and Lastminute.com co-founder

Last Updated on September 12, 2026 by Business Blog Media Editorial Team

Introduction

Martha Lane Fox became one of Britain’s best-known internet entrepreneurs through Lastminute.com. That alone could have defined her working life.

It didn’t.

Table of Contents

She survived a near-fatal road crash. She spent years dealing with its physical effects. Then her work moved towards digital access, government, education, business and the House of Lords.

Her story has changed direction more than once.

Quick Facts: Martha Lane Fox

Fact	Details
Full name	Martha Lane Fox
Title	Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho
Date of birth	10 February 1973
Age	53 in 2026
Nationality	British
Profession	Entrepreneur, businesswoman and public servant
Known for	Co-founding Lastminute.com
Education	Magdalen College, University of Oxford
University subject	Ancient and Modern History
House of Lords	Member since 25 March 2013
Parliamentary group	Crossbench
Honour	CBE
Father	Robin Lane Fox
Mother	Louisa Lane Fox
Partner	Chris Gorell Barnes
Children	Twin sons, Milo and Felix

Who Is Martha Lane Fox?

Martha Lane Fox is a British entrepreneur and public figure best known as the co-founder of Lastminute.com.

She started the travel and leisure website with Brent Hoberman in 1998. It became one of the most recognisable British internet businesses of the dot-com boom.

Her working life later moved well beyond online travel.

She became the UK’s Digital Champion, entered the House of Lords as a Crossbench peer and took board positions at large companies. She has also worked on internet access, education, responsible technology and disability access.

UK Parliament still lists her as a Crossbench member of the House of Lords, a position she has held since March 2013.

Early Life and Family

Martha was born on 10 February 1973.

Her father is Robin Lane Fox, a historian, writer and Oxford academic known for his work on classical history. Her mother is Louisa Lane Fox.

Published profiles give conflicting information about Martha’s exact birthplace, so the city is best left out rather than presented as settled fact.

She grew up around books and academic life.

But her own path went somewhere different.

Technology came later.

Education

Martha attended Oxford High School and later Westminster School.

She then went to Magdalen College, Oxford, where she studied Ancient and Modern History.

She wasn’t trained as a computer scientist or software engineer. Her later internet work came through business, media and an ability to see how people might use online services.

That distinction matters.

Her strength wasn’t writing code.

It was seeing an opportunity.

Early Work

After university, Martha joined Spectrum Strategy Consultants in 1994.

The firm worked with companies in media and telecommunications. It was there that she met Brent Hoberman.

That connection changed her working life.

She later gained more business experience around television and media before joining Hoberman on an internet business idea.

The internet was still unfamiliar territory for many consumers.

Online booking wasn’t normal yet.

They went for it anyway.

Starting Lastminute.com

Martha Lane Fox and Brent Hoberman founded Lastminute.com in 1998.

The idea was simple enough: sell travel, entertainment and leisure deals through the internet, especially offers that businesses wanted to sell close to the date of use.

Flights. Hotels. Experiences.

People could find them online.

The company grew quickly and became closely linked with Britain’s dot-com boom.

By 2000, Martha was one of the most recognisable young business figures in the UK.

Lastminute.com Stock Market Flotation

Lastminute.com floated on the London Stock Exchange in March 2000.

The company was valued at about £571 million at flotation.

Then the dot-com market fell.

Hard.

Technology stocks lost huge amounts of value, and Lastminute.com’s share price also suffered. Many internet companies from the same period disappeared altogether.

Lastminute.com survived.

Martha stayed with the business until late 2003, when she stepped down as managing director. She remained a non-executive director until the company was sold.

Lastminute.com Sale

In 2005, US company Sabre Holdings, which owned Travelocity, agreed to buy Lastminute.com for around £577 million.

Martha still owned 8.2 million shares.

At the deal price, her holding was valued at roughly £13.5 million.

That historic share value is documented.

A reliable figure for her personal wealth today isn’t publicly established, so estimates from celebrity wealth websites aren’t useful for a fact-based profile.

The 2004 Morocco Car Crash

Martha’s life took a very different turn in May 2004.

She was involved in a serious road accident while travelling in Morocco.

The crash nearly killed her.

Later accounts say she broke numerous bones, badly injured her pelvis, suffered internal injuries and had a stroke. She spent a long period in hospital and went through many operations.

The damage didn’t simply disappear.

Years later, she was still dealing with nerve damage, pain and mobility problems. In a 2024 interview she discussed the lasting physical effects of the crash and her use of walking sticks.

It changed daily life.

It also changed her work.

Life After the Accident

Returning to the exact same business routine wasn’t realistic.

Martha began taking on a wider mix of work.

Business remained part of it. So did charities and public work.

In 2005 she became involved in Lucky Voice, the private-room karaoke business.

That connection has lasted for years.

The House of Lords Register of Interests currently lists her as Chairman of Lucky Voice Group Ltd, and it records her shareholding in the business.

Digital Inclusion Work

Martha started spending more time on a question that affected millions of people:

Who was being left offline?

She became the government’s Champion for Digital Inclusion in 2009.

In 2010, Prime Minister David Cameron appointed her UK Digital Champion.

Her work focused on people who lacked internet access or basic online skills.

For many, getting online could mean easier access to jobs, information, public services, banking and communication.

She also worked on ideas that fed into the government’s wider digital programme.

The Government Digital Service later became closely associated with simpler online public services and GOV.UK. A 2013 government review referred to four areas set out by the former UK Digital Champion as part of this work.

Go ON UK

In 2012, she launched Go ON UK.

Its work focused on basic digital skills.

The goal was straightforward: help more people, charities and smaller businesses gain enough online knowledge to take part in everyday digital life.

It brought organisations from different sectors into the same effort.

For Martha, access wasn’t only about having an internet connection.

Knowing how to use it mattered too.

CBE

Martha was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire, or CBE, in the 2013 New Year Honours.

The official citation recognised her as UK Digital Champion and credited her voluntary services to the UK digital economy and charity.

The honour arrived during a period when her public work was becoming as visible as her business past.

Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho

In 2013, Martha became a life peer.

Her formal title is Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho, of Soho in the City of Westminster.

She joined the House of Lords on 25 March 2013.

She sits as a Crossbench peer.

That means she isn’t attached to one of the political parties in Parliament.

Her parliamentary work has included membership of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy.

She also chaired the House of Lords COVID-19 Committee from June 2020 until April 2022.

The Open University

Martha became the sixth Chancellor of The Open University in 2014.

She was installed on 10 September that year.

The position made sense alongside her work on access to education and technology.

As of September 2026, The Open University’s public officers page still names Baroness Lane-Fox as Chancellor.

There is one point readers should know.

Open University Senate minutes from 2025 said that she had decided to step down and that the process of appointing a successor would begin. Since the university’s public officers page still lists her in the post, the handover appears not to have been reflected there yet.

Doteveryone

Martha’s 2015 Richard Dimbleby Lecture led to another project.

That project became Doteveryone.

The organisation worked on questions around technology, society, ethics, online rights and how digital products affect ordinary people.

It also looked at how technology companies could make better decisions about the people affected by their products.

Doteveryone ended its work in 2020.

So it belongs in Martha’s past work, rather than her active positions today.

British Chambers of Commerce

Martha became President of the British Chambers of Commerce in 2022.

She held the position during a difficult period for UK businesses facing cost pressures, labour issues and economic uncertainty.

Her presidency has now ended.

Andy Haldane took over as BCC President on 2 February 2026.

BCC said Martha would continue working with the Chamber network in an ambassadorial role.

Companies House records also show that her appointment as a BCC director ended on 31 December 2025.

Business Positions

Martha’s later working life includes several board positions.

Her active interests registered with the House of Lords include:

Chairman of Lucky Voice Group Ltd
Director of Chanel S.A.
Non-executive Director of Multiverse
Non-executive Director of British Airways plc
Adviser to GiveWheel CIC
Adviser to Lakestar Resilience Fund

These positions appear in the House of Lords Register of Interests, which is updated during parliamentary sitting periods.

Companies House also records her as an active British Airways director, appointed on 1 November 2024.

She joined the board of Multiverse Group Limited in October 2024.

She has been a director of Chanel Limited since June 2018.

Previous Board Work

Martha has held board positions at several well-known companies.

Her past work includes Marks & Spencer, Channel 4 and Twitter.

She joined Twitter’s board in 2016 and remained connected with the company until its 2022 takeover.

These jobs gave her experience outside the business she had built herself.

By then, her working life covered retail, media, technology, travel, education and public policy.

Peers for the Planet

Martha is also connected with Peers for the Planet, a parliamentary group working on climate and nature issues.

Companies House records Martha Lane Fox as an active director of Peers for the Planet Ltd, with her appointment dating from August 2019.

Her House of Lords register also records research assistance from the organisation in connection with that work.

Charity Work

Charitable work has been part of Martha’s public life for many years.

She has had links with Reprieve, the human-rights organisation, and AbilityNet, which works around technology access for disabled people.

Her own experience of serious injury gave accessibility questions a very personal meaning.

She knows what reduced mobility can do to someone’s independence.

And she has spoken openly about that.

Martha’s Mountain Mission

In 2024, twenty years after the Morocco crash, Martha took on a demanding fundraising challenge.

She set out to climb Yr Wyddfa/Snowdon, Scafell Pike and Ben Nevis.

Her continuing mobility problems made the climbs especially tough.

The fundraising benefited four charities: AbilityNet, Day One Trauma, Horatio’s Garden and iamtheCODE.

Her twin sons joined her for part of the challenge.

The project tied together several strands of her life: serious injury, rehabilitation, access and charity work.

Personal Life

Martha’s long-term partner is Chris Gorell Barnes, an entrepreneur and media businessman.

He was with her at the time of the 2004 Morocco accident.

The couple have twin sons named Milo and Felix.

The boys were born in 2016 and have occasionally appeared with their mother in public charity-related coverage.

Martha keeps much of her family life away from her public work.

Martha Lane Fox’s Parents

Her father, Robin Lane Fox, is a historian, classicist, author and gardening writer.

He spent much of his academic life connected with Oxford.

Her mother is Louisa Lane Fox.

Older profiles of Martha regularly connect her upbringing with an academic household, though her own working life ended up centred on business and technology rather than classical studies.

Honours and Recognition

The CBE isn’t her only formal recognition.

She became a Distinguished Fellow of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, in 2016.

The Royal Academy of Engineering later elected her an Honorary Fellow in 2023.

Her peerage remains one of the clearest markers of her public-service work.

Yet she is still most widely recognised by many readers for one thing:

Lastminute.com.

Where Is Martha Lane Fox Now?

Martha remains active across Parliament and business.

UK Parliament currently lists her as a Crossbench member of the House of Lords.

Her registered paid positions include Lucky Voice, Chanel, Multiverse and British Airways.

She also remains linked with Peers for the Planet.

And while her British Chambers of Commerce presidency ended in February 2026, the BCC said she would stay involved in an ambassadorial capacity.

So her work hasn’t narrowed to one field.

Business is still there.

Public work is too.

Final Thought

Martha Lane Fox first became famous during Britain’s dot-com boom.

Then life changed sharply.

The 2004 crash left lasting physical damage, but her public work continued in a different form. She moved from running an internet company into digital access, Parliament, education, charity work and boardrooms.

Lastminute.com made her famous.

What came after tells much more.