She's renowned for revolutionising the luxury Spa industry, and yet Susan Harmsworth is the first to admit she's a stress junkie. "I've had a stressful life, both personally and professionally, but I thrive on it, I'm a stress junkie," hoots the 63-year old.

The stress of managing ESPA - the industry-leading Spa design and management company, and high-end Spa product manufacturer - can't be doing Harmsworth too much harm. She looks a good 15 years younger than her age, and is bubbling over with enthusiasm about its future.

In February, Harmsworth gave up a 40 per cent stake in the business she set up 15 years ago, to Istithmar World Capital, part of a Dubai sovereign wealth fund, in return for a cash injection that will boost the business globally – quadrupling the number of ESPA products manufactured at their Surrey factory, expanding their training schools and growing their projects worldwide.

Not that they weren't global already. With 100 staff and an annual turnover of £7m previously, ESPA has a long and highly respected history in the Spa world. Today, it manages 50 branded Spas across the world, together with 50 non-branded ones, and turns down 80 per cent of new business approaches, preferring to focus on the 20 per cent that really fits the brand's luxury, high-end niche. Projects like the multimillion pound Spa development at Gleneagles, the Hotel Metropole in Monte Carlo, the One & Only Reethi Rah in the Maldives, and their numerous Ritz-Carlton hotels ventures.

But following the cash injection in February, Harmsworth has even more going on now; 60 high-end projects under construction that see her jetting across Europe, Asia and the US almost daily. And all this while still running the company. This kind of stress, Harmsworth loves. She thrives on getting involved in high level projects from the start, injecting her vision into each one, and ensuring everything is finished to her ‘perfectionist' standards – from the therapists to the treatments to the spaces they're developed in, and even the air ventilation.

But Harmsworth knows a crippling kind of stress too. When she self-funded the launch of ESPA in 1993, she nearly lost everything – her home, savings and investments. "I made the classic mistake of budgeting enough for the opening but not enough for the first 18 months' working capital," admits the entrepreneur.

Instead of accepting outside funding, she pulled herself together and eventually pulled through independently. "People thought I was nuts setting up ESPA at age 48, but it was my third company, and the timing was completely right. There was definitely a need in the marketplace."

"People thought I was nuts setting up ESPA at age 48, but it was my third company, and the timing was completely right."

Harmsworth had identified an industry shift in the 1990s. In the 70s, she explains, Spas were focused on health, wellbeing and weight loss, and targeted at wealthy people. In the 80s, with the advancement of technology and women in the workplace again, demographics changed, and week-long Spa retreats were in demand. But, by the 90s, short Spa breaks at luxury hotels were the new thing, and very much geared at stress reduction and relaxation. Harmsworth and ESPA were at the forefront.

"We were ahead of our time, designing treatments that had a physiological effect and were combating stress. We were introducing holistic and complementary therapies, things people thought were whacky back then, but are now considered mainstream." On nearly losing it all, she sums up: "I just believed in my product, my integrity and my reputation."

And she was right to. With over 30 years experience in the industry, no one has quite the reputation Harmsworth has. In fact, she had to give up Spa treatments for years because of the affect she had on therapists across the world. "Even when I tried to hide my identify and have a treatment, the girls would find out and get so nervous. I just couldn't do it to them," she insists.

Starting out life as a beauty and health journalist at Vogue in London's swinging 60s, her marriage to Vidal Sassoon's right hand man took her to US and then Canada by her mid-20s. Faced with no magazine industry to work for in Toronto, she set up a forward-thinking hair and beauty salon in 1970s, which was turned into a multimillion dollar Spa by the time she sold it in 1980, and returned to Europe.

"You could call it sad, but work is my life. And balance is difficult, especially as working involves staying in fabulous hotels and being spoilt rotten by my clients."

The next ten years were spent designing and creating Spas and treatments in France, for cruise liners, and in the UK, including Grayshott Hall, before becoming an independent consultant in 1988, where her first project, Turberry Resort in Scotland, opened in 1991 to great acclaim.

Professionally, Harmsworth was flying high. Personally, it was a different story. By 1993, she was divorced twice, admitting: "I wasn't very good at being married."

Even now, she laughs at the idea of work life balance. "You could call it sad, though I don't think it is, but work is my life. And balance is difficult, especially as my work involves travelling 70 per cent of the time, and staying in fabulous hotels where I'm spoilt rotten by my clients."

To counteract this, she's merged her personal and professional life, working alongside her two sons in their roles as Managing Director and Brand & Marketing Director of ESPA, and counting her long-standing staff, many of whom have been with her for years, as her extended family.

Even if she had time for regrets, she says she wouldn't have any. "I've made lots of mistakes but I think as long as you learn from them, you can move on." And she does, embracing each life stage at a time, admitting she's particularly enjoying her 60s.

"A lot of people ask how I cope with the aging, but I've got as much energy now as I ever did. It's just a very good time for me. I am who I am, and feel people can take it or leave it. I'm just very comfortable in my own skin and know I've been blessed with a great family, team, clients and projects."

She jokes she's ‘ancient' in the Spa industry, working in it for over 40 years now, but Harmsworth's not going anywhere fast. "There's too much more to do. With the advances in product development, and extraction of oils in plants and seaweed, the things we can do today are amazing."

And thank heavens for that. With ESPA leading the way in innovative, effective Spa treatments that help the rest of the world relax and recuperate, long may the this stress junkie continue.

For more information visit www.espaonline.com

By Barbara Walshe