WHEN Claire Selby expanded her international publishing business from her home to an actual office, she ended up becoming a commercial landlord in the process.

The chief executive of Yellow House, which focuses on learning English as a second language for young children, purchased a historic, three-level building in Abingdon in June for an undisclosed price.

She uses the ground floor for her own company and leases the upper two floors of 5 to 7 Stert Street to a surveyor, property investor and online estate agent.

Mrs Selby said Abingdon was the ideal place to locate her publishing company because of its established reputation for education and active business community.

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Although it might seem a stretch to go from publisher to landlord, Mrs Selby’s background in finance prompted her to decide that buying the property, rather than renting, was a better option for taking Yellow House out of her home near Wallingford.

She said: “I had been operating for 15 years, so I felt that I had an established business and the risk was not so high.”.

After graduating from St Hilda’s College, Oxford, in 1983 with a degree in French and German literature, the London-born entrepreneur worked in funds management.

In 1994, aged 33, Mrs Selby moved to Poland with her husband, Neil, and first child, Zenia, who was only a few weeks old.

But when her daughter started attending pre-school, Polish parents began asking her about how their own children could learn English. She said: “I thought I could combine my understanding of how to set up a company with my love of languages and music.”

Mrs Selby, 53, who is Yellow House’s principal creative writer, devised a system of learning English based on “spiral knowledge” – the ability to repeat things in different contexts – and music.

The methodology is based on music helping a child, aged up to five, to memorise words and language.

Yellow House has expanded into Russia, China and South Korea with its courses produced as books, animated videos, DVDs, CDs and online products.

Mrs Selby is reluctant to divulge sales revenue but describes the private business as growing “from small to medium”.

Yellow House employs seven people full time, but outsources as much work as possible.

The mother of two daughters also writes pre-school English language courses for Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press.

She is exploring ways to expand the UK operation by offering courses on learning Mandarin as a second language for UK children.

“Kids can quite easily cope with three languages,” she said.

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