Introduction
Susie Ma has one of the more interesting success stories in Britain’s beauty industry. Long before becoming the founder and CEO of Tropic Skincare, she was a teenager selling homemade body scrubs at Greenwich Market to help her mother pay household bills. That small venture eventually developed into a multimillion-pound skincare business.
Interest in Susie Ma’s net worth, age, husband, family and Tropic career has grown further following her return to television as a guest Dragon on BBC’s Dragons’ Den in 2026.
But her story goes well beyond television. From her childhood in Shanghai and Australia to The Apprentice, her partnership with Lord Sugar and eventually regaining full ownership of Tropic, here’s a closer look at Susie Ma’s life and career in 2026.
Susie Ma Bio: Quick Facts
Full name: Susie Ma
Date of birth: November 22, 1988
Age in 2026: 37 years old
Birthplace: Shanghai, China
Nationality: British
Profession: Entrepreneur and beauty industry executive
Education: University College London (UCL)
Career background: Entrepreneurship and finance
Company: Tropic Skincare
Business started: As a teenager at Greenwich Market
Official company launch: 2011
Current position: Founder and CEO of Tropic Skincare
Tropic ownership: Sole owner
Known for: Founding Tropic Skincare and appearing on The Apprentice
The Apprentice: Series 7 contestant in 2011
Former business partner: Lord Alan Sugar
Children: One daughter, Sienna
Dragons’ Den: Guest Dragon in 2026
Major recognition: Forbes 30 Under 30
Industry: Beauty, skincare and cosmetics
Current business base: Croydon, Surrey, UK
Reported net worth/wealth: Exact personal net worth is not publicly verified
Who Is Susie Ma?
Susie Ma is a British entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Tropic Skincare, a beauty company known for skincare, body care, makeup and its large community of independent Ambassadors.
Her entrepreneurial story began remarkably early.
Tropic says Ma started creating skincare products at her mother’s kitchen table when she was 15. Inspired by a body scrub recipe associated with her grandmother, she filled recycled jam jars with her product and took them to Greenwich Market.
The first batch sold out.
That teenage project eventually became Tropic Skincare, with Ma remaining at the centre of the company more than two decades later.
Susie Ma Age: How Old Is She?
Susie Ma was born on November 22, 1988, making her 37 years old as of September 2026.
She was born in Shanghai and moved to Cairns, Australia, at the age of six, according to Tropic’s official company history. Her childhood in tropical North Queensland later became part of the inspiration behind the Tropic brand.
Her age becomes particularly striking when viewed alongside her business timeline. Ma was only a teenager when she began selling skincare and was 21 when she appeared on BBC’s The Apprentice.
Susie Ma Early Life
Susie Ma’s early years were spread across several countries.
She was born in Shanghai, China, before her family moved to Cairns in Australia. Tropic says her grandmother was a medicinal chemist and toxicologist and played an important role in shaping Ma’s early interest in skincare and ingredients.
Ma later moved to London with her mother.
Money was tight after the move. Instead of simply waiting for the family’s financial circumstances to improve, Ma looked for a way to contribute herself.
That decision became the starting point of Tropic.
Susie Ma Education
Alongside running her young skincare business, Susie Ma continued with her education.
She attended University College London, and Forbes lists her as a UCL graduate.
What stands out is that she was balancing education with entrepreneurship long before Tropic became a nationally recognized company.
According to Tropic’s account of her early years, the money she earned through her business helped fund her university education and eventually enabled her to buy her mother a house.
How Susie Ma Started Tropic Skincare
The origins of Tropic Skincare are surprisingly simple.
At 15, Ma recreated a body scrub inspired by a family recipe and produced an initial batch of 50 jars from her mother’s kitchen.
She then took them to Greenwich Market in London.
The products sold out on the first day. Instead of treating it as a one-off success, Ma continued making products during evenings and selling them at markets on weekends while studying full-time.
Those early years taught her something difficult to reproduce in a classroom: direct customer feedback.
She could see what people liked, hear their questions and understand why they returned.
That experience helped form the foundations of Tropic’s later community-driven business model.
Susie Ma and The Apprentice
Susie Ma became nationally known when she appeared on Series 7 of BBC’s The Apprentice in 2011.
She was just 21.
Ma did not win the competition, ultimately finishing third. But her appearance produced an unusual outcome.
Lord Alan Sugar saw commercial potential in Tropic and subsequently invested in the company.
According to Tropic, Sugar became a 50/50 business partner with Ma, helping move the company from its kitchen-table beginnings into a more substantial operation.
In some ways, not winning The Apprentice ended up being only a small part of the story.
The relationship created after the programme became much more important to the future of her company.
Lord Sugar and Susie Ma’s Business Partnership
Lord Sugar reportedly invested £200,000 for a 50% stake in Tropic after Ma’s appearance on The Apprentice.
The partnership lasted for years while Tropic expanded.
The company grew its product range, headquarters, workforce and Ambassador network while developing into a substantial British beauty business.
But Ma eventually wanted complete ownership again.
Susie Ma Buys Back Tropic
One of the biggest developments in Susie Ma’s career was her decision to regain full ownership of Tropic.
Tropic states that Ma completed a buyout in 2023 that returned the company to full founder ownership. More recent reporting explains that the financial arrangement was completed through staged payments, with the final payment to Lord Sugar made in December 2025.
Today, Tropic describes Susie Ma as its sole owner.
This is an important part of understanding her current wealth and business position. She is no longer simply the founder and CEO of Tropic; she controls the company outright.
Susie Ma Net Worth in 2026
Susie Ma’s net worth is naturally one of the most searched questions surrounding her success.
There is, however, an important difference between someone’s business value and their personal net worth.
No audited public financial statement reveals exactly how much cash, property, investments and other personal assets Ma owns, minus her liabilities. Because Tropic is privately owned, calculating an exact personal net worth from public information is difficult.
What is documented is the scale of the underlying business.
The Times reported that Tropic reached approximately £75 million in turnover in 2025, with around £8.7 million in pre-tax profit.
Those figures provide considerably more useful financial context than unsupported celebrity net-worth estimates.
How Did Susie Ma Make Her Money?
Susie Ma’s wealth is primarily connected to her ownership of Tropic Skincare.
Her financial success has developed through more than 20 years of building the company rather than through television appearances alone.
The business sells skincare and beauty products through its direct-to-consumer operation and a large Ambassador community.
As sole owner, Ma’s financial position is closely connected with the performance and value of Tropic.
How Successful Is Tropic Skincare?
Tropic has grown dramatically since Ma’s Greenwich Market days.
According to the company’s 2026 founder profile, Tropic has millions of customers and more than 20,000 Ambassadors. Ma also oversees a headquarters team of more than 250 people.
The company says it freshly makes most of its range in Britain at its Surrey Beauty Kitchen.
For context, Forbes reported back in 2018 that Tropic had already reached £20 million in annual revenue in 2017.
Its subsequent growth shows that Tropic was not simply a short-lived business benefiting from Ma’s television exposure.
It continued expanding years after The Apprentice.
Susie Ma Husband
Susie Ma’s husband is another frequently searched subject, but there is far less reliable public information about her romantic life than there is about her business career.
Her official biographies focus heavily on Tropic, her mother, grandmother, daughter and entrepreneurial journey.
Reliable public sources reviewed for this profile do not clearly establish a current husband.
For that reason, websites should be cautious about naming a husband or partner based solely on unsourced biography pages or social-media speculation.
Public figures can be highly visible professionally while choosing to keep relationships private.
Does Susie Ma Have Children?
Yes. Susie Ma is a mother.
Tropic’s official company timeline states that Ma welcomed her first child, a daughter named Sienna, in 2024.
This is one area where her family information can be stated with much greater confidence because it is confirmed by her own company.
Ma otherwise appears to maintain considerably more privacy around her personal and romantic relationships.
Susie Ma Family
Family has played an important role in Susie Ma’s business story.
Her mother, Shu Mei, features prominently in accounts of Tropic’s beginnings. When they moved to London and faced financial difficulties, Ma’s motivation for selling skincare was partly to help her mother pay household bills.
Her grandmother was another major influence.
According to Tropic, she was a medicinal chemist and toxicologist whose knowledge helped shape Ma’s early thinking about skincare.
This makes Tropic’s origin story unusually personal. The business developed from ideas, financial circumstances and experiences within Ma’s family rather than beginning as a conventional corporate startup.
Susie Ma and Dragons’ Den
In 2026, Susie Ma returned to British business television in a very different role.
She joined BBC’s Dragons’ Den as a guest Dragon.
There is an obvious full-circle quality to the appearance.
In 2011, Ma was the young entrepreneur being evaluated by Lord Sugar on The Apprentice. Fifteen years later, she was sitting on the investor’s side of the room and evaluating entrepreneurs herself.
The appearance also reflects how much her professional position has changed.
She is no longer primarily known as a former reality-TV contestant. She is now the sole owner and CEO of an established beauty company.
Susie Ma Career
Susie Ma’s career can broadly be divided into three stages.
The first was the market-stall period, when she produced and sold skincare herself while still studying.
The second began with The Apprentice and Lord Sugar’s investment, which gave Tropic greater resources to expand.
The third is the company’s current founder-owned era, following Ma’s decision to buy back Sugar’s stake and regain complete control.
That progression explains why her story continues to attract attention more than two decades after she sold her first jars of body scrub.
Susie Ma Forbes Recognition
Susie Ma has received several forms of business recognition over the years.
Most notably, she appeared on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2018.
Tropic also lists recognition including Management Today’s 35 Women Under 35 and entrepreneurship awards.
Awards do not tell the whole story of a company, of course. Revenue, profitability, longevity and ownership provide more meaningful measures of business development.
Still, these recognitions helped establish Ma’s reputation beyond The Apprentice and the beauty industry.
What Is Susie Ma Doing Now?
As of 2026, Susie Ma remains Founder, CEO and sole owner of Tropic Skincare.
She is involved in the strategic direction of the business and product development while leading a substantial headquarters team.
Tropic is also looking beyond its established UK business. The Times reported in 2026 that Ma plans to pursue international expansion, beginning with the United States.
That makes the next stage of Tropic’s growth worth watching.
Frequently Asked Questions About Susie Ma
How old is Susie Ma in 2026?
Susie Ma was born on November 22, 1988, making her 37 years old as of September 2026.
What is Susie Ma’s net worth?
There is no authoritative public financial statement confirming Susie Ma’s exact personal net worth. Her wealth is closely tied to Tropic Skincare, which she now owns outright.
Who is Susie Ma’s husband?
Reliable public sources do not clearly identify a current husband. Ma has shared considerably more information about her business and family background than about her romantic relationships.
Does Susie Ma have a daughter?
Yes. Tropic’s official timeline states that Susie Ma welcomed her first child, Sienna, in 2024.
Does Susie Ma still own Tropic?
Yes. Susie Ma is the sole owner of Tropic Skincare after buying out Lord Sugar’s stake.
Did Susie Ma win The Apprentice?
No. Susie Ma finished third on The Apprentice in 2011. Lord Sugar subsequently invested in Tropic despite her not winning the programme.
Is Susie Ma on Dragons’ Den?
Yes. Susie Ma joined Dragons’ Den as a guest Dragon in 2026.
Conclusion
The story behind Susie Ma’s net worth, age, family and Tropic career is ultimately more interesting than a single wealth estimate.
She went from making body scrub at her mother’s kitchen table and selling jars at Greenwich Market to building Tropic Skincare into a substantial British beauty business. Along the way came The Apprentice, a long business partnership with Lord Sugar, Forbes recognition and eventually the return of full ownership to Ma.
In 2026, she is 37, a mother to daughter Sienna, the founder, CEO and sole owner of Tropic, and a guest investor on Dragons’ Den.
Her exact personal wealth and romantic life remain less publicly documented, but her business record is much clearer: more than two decades after her first market stall, Ma remains firmly in control of the company she started as a teenager.