Jennifer Campbell has had a 30-year career in banking, and once ran a multimillion-dollar ATM company.

Most of the time, though, people want to know about her time as a judge on the British hit reality television show Dragons’ Den.

She was a “dragon” on the business pitch competition show from 2017 to 2019, choosing to invest in several businesses including one making gin, an energy-switch website and a hemp skincare product.

Now retired from banking and television, Ms Campbell will share her story at the Women Mean Business: Level Up conference on Friday.

She will give advice on female leadership, upskilling and entrepreneurship.

On Dragons’ Den, personality was very important to Ms Campbell when choosing whether or not to invest in a product.

“I found it interesting how entrepreneurs responded when something went wrong,” she said.

She remembered one entrepreneur who made a pitch for a coffee travel percolator. However, when they demonstrated the item to the judges, the coffee was cold.

“The business owner was mortified,” Ms Campbell said. “However, the entrepreneur dealt with the problem very positively, and recovered quickly.”

Growing up in the North of England, Ms Campbell initially wanted to be a veterinarian.

“My father hoped I would be the first in the family to go to university,” she said.

However, a weeklong work experience programme spent counting money at a local bank changed her mind.

“I loved the independence,” she said. “I thought, let’s get to work.”

Over the years she worked her way up the management ladder, studying banking in night school. She eventually found herself working in NatWest’s London office.

“In the Nineties there were plenty of women in head office, but not in senior positions,” she said. “In the first 18 months of being there I found it quite difficult to progress as a woman.”

Having a northern accent worked against her, and so did being frank with her views.

“When I gave feedback, it was not very welcome,” she said.

Things got much easier when NatWest was bought by the Royal Bank of Scotland in March 2000. RBS had a more diverse culture.

In 2010, she bought ATM business Hanco ATM Systems from RBS and later renamed it YourCash Europe. She sold the business in October 2016 for £50 million (about $67 million), shortly before first appearing on Dragons’ Den.

It has been five years since she was on Dragons’ Den, and she has exited all investments with the people who appeared on the show.

In the early days of their marriage, she and her husband, Andrew Campbell, often holidayed in Barbados.

“One day my husband said he had come to Bermuda in the Nineties with the Royal Air Force and had a lovely time,” she said. “They were on a training exercise, but he remembered rum swizzles and the beaches more than the training.”

So they visited Bermuda. They intended to stay only two days, but instead fell in love with the island.

“I love the people here,” she said. “I love the Britishness. I love that everyone is really friendly.”

They eventually bought fractional ownership at The Reefs Resort & Club in Southampton, and visit Bermuda two or three times a year.

In her spare time, Ms Campbell breeds and shows purebred flat-coated retrievers, and a rare breed of Swiss sheep, Valais blacknose, in Suffolk.

This is her second time speaking on the island.

“I did something with the Institute of Directors in 2019,” she said.

Women Mean Business was established to provide a platform that supports, educates and inspires women’s professional growth.

• Level Up is on Friday from 3pm to 6.30pm on the sixth floor of HSBC, Front Street, Hamilton. Tickets are $299, available at www.ptix.bm, and include refreshments and networking drinks