Which Dragons’ Den Dragon Died? (Hilary Devey)

Last updated 8 July 2026. This is a living page, refreshed if the panel changes.

The Dragon who died is Hilary Devey, who sat in the Den from 2011 to 2012. She died on 11 June 2022 at the age of 65, at her holiday home in Marrakesh, Morocco, after a long illness. She was one of British business television's most recognisable figures, and she remains one of the Dragons people search for most.

Devey brought a distinctive presence to the panel, a self-made haulage entrepreneur among a line-up better known for retail and consumer brands. Here is who she was, the company she built, and the pitches she backed during her time on the show.

Who was Hilary Devey?

Hilary Devey was a businesswoman who made her fortune in freight and logistics, an industry rarely represented on the Den's panel. She joined the show in February 2011, replacing James Caan, and stayed for two series before moving on to other television work in 2012. Viewers remembered her for her direct manner, her deep knowledge of operations and margins, and a personal story that stood apart from the rest of the panel. She was also one of only a handful of women ever to sit on the British panel.

After the Den, she went on to front the Channel 4 series The Intern, in which she gave young people a trial week in their dream jobs. In 2013 she was made a CBE, recognised for her services to the transport industry and to charity.

What was her business, Pall-Ex?

Devey built the palletised freight network Pall-Ex, which she founded in 1996. It was the third palletised goods distribution network to launch in the UK, a shared hub-and-spoke system that let hauliers pool loads and deliver pallets across the country far more efficiently than any of them could alone. She grew it into a multi-million-pound operation, and it became the business achievement she was best known for long before television.

She was also, notably, one of very few women to have built and run a national freight operation, in one of the most male-dominated corners of British business. That made her a distinctive voice on the panel and a figure many aspiring entrepreneurs, women in particular, looked to.

That operator's grasp of how goods actually move, and how thin the margins can be, was exactly what she brought to the Den. Where other Dragons leaned on brand and retail instincts, Devey pressed founders on logistics, distribution and the unglamorous mechanics of getting a product from factory to customer.

What did Hilary Devey back on Dragons' Den?

During her time on the show, our index records two on-air deals featuring Devey. She backed Raskelf, the memory-foam mattress and bedding company, on her own, and she teamed up with Theo Paphitis on Shampooheads, a children's hair-care brand. Both were the kind of practical, product-led businesses that suited her operator's instincts, and both fell in the 2011 to 2012 window that made up her two-series run on the panel.

Her era sits in the middle stretch of the show's history, before the recent run of higher deal rates. If you want to revisit the businesses from those series, they are all cataloged in our directory of Dragons and the products they backed.

Devey remains one of the Dragons viewers ask about most, partly because of that memorable single run and partly because of the life story behind it. She left the Den after her second series in 2012 and went on to other television and business work, but her stint on the panel is the role most people still remember her for.

Common questions

Which Dragon from Dragons' Den has died? Hilary Devey, a Dragon in 2011 and 2012, died on 11 June 2022 at the age of 65 after a long illness.

How old was Hilary Devey when she died? She was 65.

What was Hilary Devey famous for? She founded and built the palletised freight network Pall-Ex, sat on the Dragons' Den panel, later hosted The Intern on Channel 4, and was made a CBE in 2013.

How long was Hilary Devey a Dragon? She joined in February 2011 and appeared for two series before leaving in 2012, backing two businesses on air during that run.