Margaret Hamilton Reid

Margaret Hamilton Reid (9 October 1912 - 11 April 2010) was an Irish business woman, who was the chair of Switzer & Company department stores in Dublin from 1956 to 1972. She was the first woman to chair a publicly quoted Irish company.

Life Margaret Hamilton Reid was born on 9 October 1912 in Dublin. One of her first memories was seeing the buildings on O'Connell Street burn during the Easter 1916 Rising. Her grandfather, John Hamilton Reid, co-founded Switzer & Company in 1890. Reid was an only child, and at age 15 attended her first annual general meeting of Switzers. Reid was elected to the board at a young age. When she was elected chair of the board in 1956, Reid became the first female chair of a publicly quoted Irish company, and referred to herself as chairman, not chairperson. Reid maintained that Switzers should never stock anything which could be "detrimental to humankind" and under her leadership the mantra of the company was "The sale you know is genuine." She believed that her company should be held to the highest ethical standards so that the accounts "could be put on the communion table."