Businesswomen from England

"My mum was Jewish. Maybe I'm a really bad Jew because I'm always so excited to say that I am, but I don't live and breathe the religion."

"[Meat industry] truly is a disgusting industry, all the more so because it’s hidden. Have you ever seen animals being shipped to abattoirs? Do you even know where these abattoirs are? Have you ever seen an animal getting killed for the food you eat? It’s a dark, dark, dark trade that nobody really knows about, and a hugely profitable one at that. … If I don’t believe in killing animals, why on earth would I do it for the sake of fashion … I don’t think there’s any difference, because at the end of the day you’re killing an animal and stripping its skin off its body. It’s somebody’s baby – or it has a baby – it breathes, it lives, it has emotions, it has feelings … I find it fascinating that leather and fur are so often associated with the top luxury level of fashion. And yet leather, in this day and age, is probably cheaper than a piece of cotton. So there’s such a tiny price put on an animal’s life."

"Stella’s work has helped to redefine and recalibrate our thinking … Higher-end brands have said they couldn’t exist without fur. Stella proves, of course you can."

"From afar, I have long admired Stella McCartney … who has never used animal products in her eponymous brand and who has catalyzed the development of new luxury products that gorgeously resemble leather, fur or skin, but aren’t. Stella has also taken tremendous risks for her principles, including making clear to Gucci from the beginning she would not work with leather, a bold statement to an iconic fashion house arguably synonymous with leather, particularly from a then 29-year-old designer. … Stella is now known as a fashion designer, and one particularly adept at designing for women in all of our various moods, ambitions, roles and for every season. … Her aesthetics are as consistent as her ethics – across space and time, a Stella McCartney is as recognizable as a Stella McCartney."

"Get rid of those terrible jeans that everybody else wears. And wear something different for a change, so you don't just look like a clone."

"On a nygth, as this creatur lay in hir bedde wyth hir husbond, sche herd a sownd of melodye so swet and delectable, hir thowt, as sche had ben in paradyse. And therwyth sche styrt owt of hir bedde and seyd, "Alas, that evyr I dede synne, it is ful mery in hevyn.""

"Pacyens is more worthy than myraclys werkyng."

"Sche cam beforn the Erchebischop and fel down on hir kneys, the Erchebischop seying ful boystowsly unto hir, "Why wepist thu so, woman?" Sche, answeryng, seyde, "Syr, ye schal welyn sum day that ye had wept as sor as I.""

"Sometimes she felt sweet smells with her nose; it was sweeter, she thought, than ever was any sweet earthly thing that she smelled before…Sometimes she heard with her bodily ears such sounds and melodies that she might not well hear what a man said to her in that time unless he spoke the louder. These sounds and melodies had she heard nearly every day for the term of twenty-five years…She saw with her bodily eye many white things flying all about her on every side, as thick in a manner as motes in the sun; they were right delicate and comfortable, and the brighter that the sun shone …Also our Lord gave her another token, which endured about sixteen years, and it increased ever more and more, and that was a flame of fire wonderfully hot and delectable and right comfortable, not wasting but ever increasing of flame, for, though the weather was never so cold, she felt the heat burning in her breast and at her heart, and verily as a man should feel the material fire if he put his hand or his finger therein"

"As an intimate record of personal religious experience it has few equals. The marks of accuracy, sincerity, and reality are stamped on every page."

"Margery was more of a religious hysteric than a mystic. But she gives a vibrant account of her life as a woman to whom religion and weeping were as attractive as sex was to the Wife of Bath."

"The Book of Margery Kempe tells the story of one woman’s spiritual journey in Medieval England over a twenty-five year period, describing her quest to establish spiritual authority as a result of her personal conversations with Jesus and God. Whilst the text is written in the third person, it is generally acknowledged to be the first autobiography written in the English language...Kempe’s story relates not only Margery’s struggle to achieve some form of divine spirituality, but also her polarised reception within society. Some, most notably religious authority figures, revered Margery as a holy mystic, whilst others, mainly commoners, rejected and slandered her as a devil worshiper."

"Kempe describes, in this extract and elsewhere, what could be construed as classic psychotic symptoms; visions, auditory, olfactory and tactile hallucinations, grandiose delusions, self-neglect (Margery’s penances of fasting, being inadequately clothed), social withdrawal (from her family and friends), and feelings of passivity and control. Yet it does not feel like madness. Why not? What Kempe describes to us is a truly embodied spiritual experience. Kempe has no doubt about this, and it is this unshakeable belief that communicates itself down the centuries through the text...the question remains as to how Kempe manages to convey the phenomenological intensity of Margery’s experience twenty or more years after the event? First, Kempe is an expert storyteller, and it is likely that she retold such narratives as discussed here on many occasions to many people, clergy and fellow pilgrims, through oral testimony and public performance. Second, central to the orthodox liturgy, is the conception that devotional words uttered are expressed through the senses. Extreme emotion which, in modern times, is viewed as a sign of mental instability, was a fundamental feature of spirituality, conveying both the seriousness and truth of the religious experience...With this knowledge, when we return to Kempe’s text, we can listen to Margery’s voice within a framework more akin to medieval England than the twentieth century West. Margery’s sensory experiences are not without cultural and historical provenance, rather she draws upon a range of mystical sources grounded in religious and cultural traditions known throughout medieval Europe. Kempe’s embodied descriptions cease to be tactile or olfactory hallucinations or grandiose ideas (marriage to God), but become experiences that result from spiritual passion. As Porter argues “it would serve no purpose to label such exercise of spiritual discipline as a psychiatric disorder” (Porter, 1988: 44). As argued earlier, religiosity was sanity, whereas madness amounted to a refusal to accept the truth that was God. Furthermore, Margery’s experiences are intelligible not only in terms of religious traditions, but also in her terms of her career; Kempe construes Margery as a holy mystic"

"Kempe was psychotic for much of her adult life...Kempe continued to have psychotic symptoms throughout the remainder of her life...[her] account provides the modern reader with a unique opportunity to hear the voice of a woman with serious mental illness who lived 600 years ago"

"Given this mixture of affective and schizophrenic features a modern psychiatric diagnosis for Margery Kempe would most likely be ‘schizoaffective psychosis’, precipitated in the first instance by childbirth"

"We also know that Julian too received frequent visitors, as is attested by the autobiography of another fervent Christian of her time, Margery Kempe, who went to Norwich in 1413 to receive advice on her spiritual life"

"I came to the understanding that individually we are responsible for the way in which we live and for the care of our human frame by good nutrition, proper exercise and a balanced lifestyle. It is this, together with a strong focused mind, that enables us to draw from our vast inner resources and strength to make the most of our time on this planet. The changes in my life came by way of a massive physical and psychological shock and were implemented for the purpose of healing and motivating my recovery. A change in our diet and lifestyle of course can be started at any time, and is of interest to anybody wishing to maximise their health and vitality, leading to a more fulfilling life. This was how I discovered the benefits of cutting meat and dairy from my diet and then taking the correct care of my body’s nutritional requirements to help heal my mind, body and soul."

"I cannot analyze all the things that endear this country to me. For one, you don't have the 'great public school' system by which one class gets the good breaks and gets them first. I hope the war will do away with that caste idea."

"As quoted in "Anna Lee Likes Our Ways; Will Be Citizen" by Julia McCarthy, New York Daily News (March 5, 1943), p. 24"

"On Seven Sinners, Marlene Dietrich was the boss. She took one look at me on my first day and stated, "I vill not vork vit anutter blonde." So I had to go to the beauty shop and get my hair dyed mud brown."

"John Ford came in and I was very scared of him. A rough character. I heard he despised the English, so I invented an Irish grandfather and told tales to him that simply were not true. [...] I found Ford to be a very curmudgeonly taskmaster, but always very fair. He always knew what he wanted in a scene. He never overshot. God help you if you didn't deliver what he wanted. And he liked me well enough that I finally told him that my Irish grandfather was fictional. He roared over that one. We've been close friends ever since. He used me a lot over the next few decades."

"He didn't direct you. He never told you what to do. He would talk to you, mostly about something completely different, and you find yourself doing the right thing. It was really very spooky—what he did."

"John Wayne was such a nice man, but he was always a lttle shy with women, particularly blondes. As for Boris, he was a lovely man. We used to have great fun reciting poetry to each other."

"I want to die with my boots on. English actors have a great reputation for longevity."

"My father wanted to be a hero and my mother wanted to be with my father, and once you get those two pieces in place, it was kind of as simple as that."

"You walk away from a childhood like mine with various scars. I have physical scars but I also have emotional scars."

"And I am normal in some way, but I am also an outsider."

"Children are humans. They have a right to an education and a right to a social life. There is a UN mandate for children that was clearly breached in multiple ways by my parents."

"“The mindset of a sailor is very different to the mindset of people who live on land.”"

"The thing that you need to do when you’re under threat is to be incredibly calm, because it’s only when you’re calm that you can think rationally and get through things."

"“The best leaders can be both resilient and humble.”"

"When I hire people, I look for evidence of both characteristics. Candidates who have experienced situations where things have gone wrong, often have strong resilience."

"When I consider such candidates, I look for people who tell me survivor stories, not victim stories."

"“The trap that companies can sometimes fall into is to dump large amounts of information onto the board.”"

"Let’s use the words people are uncomfortable using – lesbian, gay"

"It’s not about me. It’s about what you do for other people. For me, it’s so important because you need these role models."

"I said ‘I’m coming out, I can’t live with this’"

"What you do is, you de-genderise every statement you make. You’re in a business environment; you de-gender everything, You never say he or she. You do it constantly. All these little things, that if you haven’t experienced you just wouldn’t appreciate. And suddenly you can be free"

"It’s interesting, they feel awkward. That’s why when I talk about this I say let’s use the words that people are uncomfortable using – lesbian, gay."

"“I tried to be something I wasn’t. I behaved like a man.”"

"“I gave a clear instruction to my partner not to phone me in the office because I was so worried about my colleagues suspecting that I was having a relationship with a woman.”"

"“I decided to come out during the interview process so that I wasn’t going into it with any secrets. I just brought it up with the group CEO and he was fine. You think, why did it take so long? That’s why I encourage everyone to do it.”"

"“You spend half your energy hiding the reality, leading a dual life, making excuses. There’s a lovely story about someone in the industry who was born male and was male at work but had a female persona in her personal life. She was outed because of technology linking Facebook photos and her iPhone. After years of being a man at work but actually being a woman it was fantastic. Everybody was supportive; she’s never looked back.”"

"“People are a bit reluctant to reveal what is going on in their world. And others are nervous talking about it because they don’t know what to say and don’t want to look silly.”"

"“It’s good to have someone completely different to you to chat about things with.”"

"“People don’t know who to trust any more. So, we’ve got to find another mechanism to include much bigger parts of the population, and use different metrics to measure success of a country.”"

"I can remember, it was in the 1990s and I had been working in the insurance for about 14 years and I was offered my first promotion. This was going to be the first time I was going to manage one person at work, and do you know what? I said'No'."

"I look back at that 32-year old Inga, and I don't recognize her now-but that was how under-confident I was. I don't think I was ready or good enough to take the job."

"If we can get this gender thing right, we can then get it right for all sorts of other groups that feel perhaps marginalized or under-represented, particularly in the senior levels in the workplace."

"When I took the role of CEO, I was basically running the entire ma"

"It is pretty similar to being the CEO of a public listed company but you’ve got to get thousands of people to do what you want without them being your employees. That was a really tough challenge"

"“If we are leaders, we try to give the answers all the time instead of spending time asking people how they are feeling"

"Often [as a leader] someone is demanding of you; they want it done next week, in two months or whatever"

"“Criticism comes at women leaders from more angles than men – there is now data showing that microaggressions in the workplace are higher against women than men.”"

"I have taken on several CEO roles in my life and some organisations have required a turnaround or a huge transformation. To have people focus on your leadership skills, your experience and the great things you have achieved, rather than the way you look or a small mistake you have made, would have made it much easier."

""I got a lot of my strength and support not only from my family but also from women’s networks – a source of inspirational energy to keep going.”"

"“The golden rule is to keep communicating – 1. Communicate the business case; 2. Communicate it’s the right thing to do; 3. Communicate that you mean it.""

"“The PIE model is one that I totally buy into. It stands for Performance, Image and Exposure. These are the three elements that are essential for your career development.""

"“Believe in your own ability – I was so under confident that I even said ‘no’ to the first promotion I was offered.”"

"“Although it’s easier than it used to be for people to come out as LGBTQ+ at work, it’s still hard.”"

"I chose to come out as bisexual just prior to starting at Lloyd’s of London so I know how it feels to be different. I am glad I have been honest because it had begun to feel like I was lying to the people around me."

"I know it’s impacted people’s decisions about inviting me and my partner to events and it has made me feel uncomfortable meeting politicians representing countries where homosexuality is illegal."

"Find somewhere to work where the culture, values and behaviours align with your own."

"If you have to pretend to be someone you aren’t for too long, it will poison you from inside."

""If you want to be a creative, innovative, successful business, you embrace diverse talent, and you create an inclusive environment. It's the only way to be successful in the long term. Not one part of the community can do this on their own; it can only be done together.”"

""It's only by sharing your own experiences that other people can get a glimpse into what it's like for people who are different to you.”"

"There's been a huge change for women in senior positions. Some of this has been about signing up to things like the 30% Club, where a lot of boards have agreed to commit to having a third of their directors as females."

"Trying to force a percentage of woman on boards – I'm completely against all that."

"People talk about glass ceilings but it is not something I have particularly experienced – but that is only my experience."

"There should be more freedom of choice. People should be free to decide whether to go to a smoking establishment or a non-smoking environment."

"I am not someone who supports quotas because quotas are around the demand side of the equation and you need to look at the supply side. And quick fixes on the supply side are not necessarily quality fixes."

"I don’t like to think we’re a commodity.” Speaking in a television interview with Bloomberg TV, she added: “It’s not a quick thing to sort."

"It is just a fantastic relaxation and it’s good for the core and voice projection"

"I’m hoping it is, but it’s too early to call. It’s the only sign I’ve got at the moment"

"The down-trading dynamic has been in place in Western Europe for a very, very long time"

"Display bans don’t make a difference; bigger warnings on packs don’t make a difference"

"The only thing we have ever seen make a difference is bans on smoking in public places, because they reduce the occasions to smoke."

"There is an adult choice piece here and there are plenty of adults who still choose to smoke despite decades of reasons not to. That needs to be respected at some point"

"Fixing demand isn’t the answer, and that is all quotas do. It does nothing for fixing supply and also, if I’m being straightforward, it does nothing about the quality of supply. It is going to take a while and hard yards to fix some of this"

"“I do carry quite a lot of data in my head, but a lot of it is song lyrics.”"

""There are plenty of adults who still choose to smoke despite decades of reasons not to. That needs to be respected at some point.”"

"All I have ever done with my career is just try and maximise the opportunity and challenge for whatever role I have been in, and that has led to me to this seat.”"

"‘Haraka, haraka haina Baraka’ which means in Swahili ‘Hurry, hurry brings no blessing’."

""If you work for me it doesn’t mean I don’t drive quite hard for things, but there are times in business when you just have to sit back and let things take their course — maybe let the decision brew a bit before you jump in.”"

"I get up at 7:30 am. I do 'morning pages' - three written pages of journaling (a concept from The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron). Then ten minutes of meditation and a half-hour walk into the office."

"I'm too busy to check email or social media before work, which is great as I find that checking for updates does not set me up well for the day at all"

"I discovered Todoist through a 'lunch and learn' we did at Softwire where people explained their methods of tracking tasks. It's a fabulous app because it just works."

"I have a fledgling career as an actor and trying to fit both in means I work pretty much all the time, including evenings and weekends. I try not to send emails into the night"

"Once you get into management, it’s challenges all the way up!"

"I would love to live in a world where everyone, including the women themselves, expects exactly the same drive and ability from both female and male employees."

"If you can’t see someone who looks like you doing the job, then you don’t think it’s for you."

"My biggest learning around mentorship is that all of the drive and determination needs to come from the mentee. If you go to a mentor or coach expecting them to wave a magic wand and fix your life for you, it’s not going to happen."

"It looks very glamorous from the outside, but you’re just in some big room in a hotel with lots of boards so it really just feels like a school hall"

"The women’s tournament was much smaller than the main competition and I got lucky to get through the draw"

"You see it in all sports and particularly in those like snooker for example, when you’re about to win and all those thoughts start going through your head you actually play worse"

"It’s just like anything, until you have someone to show you how to play it you won’t pick it up"

"But I think backgammon is even more beneficial because it revolves around managing probability, risk and reward"

"I’m very confident in myself as a person, and I know I work well in business, but you just never know with the tasks. The first couple of weeks were really hard."

"“Actually, if I put my head down and do the right things, I could bloody win this.” I felt I grew a lot more in confidence during the process and eventually won it. So yeah, I did something right."

"One of the key things for me going in was to just be myself. I tried to stay calm. I did not want the aggressive label. In business sometimes, that’s how people are and that’s what works for them, but that’s not how I would want to manage my own."

"Usually, you’d have to remind yourself what happened but this part was just selling myself and my business, and that’s my passion. That’s what I know everything about. So by that point, it was great to be able to just talk abut the business and to sell it."

"In business sometimes, that’s how people are and that’s what works for them, but that’s not how I would want to manage my own. So I tried to keep out of confrontation, focus on the prize and keep people on board. But by the end, I wanted to show myself a bit more. I think everything I did worked really well and, obviously I’ve won so... I can't even believe I’m saying that."

"You have to work hard for money and save for a rainy day."

"I ended up working pretty much every hour I possibly could and reined in my spending as well so that I could invest in my business."

"You’ve got to have that entrepreneurial flair where you will find the answer to the problem."

"As long as you’ve got a solid idea and a strategy to get to where you want to be - just give it a go."

"The rise of social media made it easier to make and sell my own clothes and get into the fashion world."

"“Am I going to feel passionate about my business every day for the rest of my life?”"

"You don’t need massive amounts of money behind you when you start, but finding the right products for your business can really help."

"Business owners shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help from the people who have the answers."

"I think you need a little bit of everything. I think you have to kind of play it safe to begin with a little bit, you have to listen to people and work as a team, but towards the end you kind of use your own initiative and be a bit more outspoken."

"CEOs have always had to focus on running their company well, but, unquestionably, a CEO needs to increasingly focus on purpose, investing time and resources in making a wider contribution to the environment and to the communities where their company operates. They need to focus more on culture, as culture is the enabler of any upside, and it should guide you as a leader."

"Empathy is absolutely critical for CEOs. In a politically uncertain world—with increasing divergence between the “haves” and “have nots,” you have to think carefully about how you show up as a leader and ensure you’re in touch with your customers, employees, and wider stakeholders."

"I've learned through difficult periods as a CEO that resilience is everything. I believe the ability to quickly recover from setbacks, rally for longer, and remain positive is a key differentiator for many top CEOs."

"I've also learned to leverage tough times to build followership. In times of crisis, the role of the CEO isn't to be a spokesperson; it's to lean in and help with the critical tasks that need to be done. You can absolutely come out of this period stronger."

"I’m a football fan (Everton) and I say to my staff you are only as good as your last match. I’ve never looked back and said that I should have done something differently, but some days are harder than others."

"You have to decide whether you always want to be Thierry Henry or Arsene Wenger. When I was younger, I thought I was always going to be Henry but someone opened my eyes to realise that overseeing the whole team, thinking about the strategy and getting the best out of others was much more satisfying."

"I don’t really pay attention to my own publicity - that’s not why I do the job. What I need to concentrate on is doing the best possible job for my customers, my investors, and our communities. If I have any power, it’s to do the absolute best for everyone and maybe to try to inspire the next generation to be the best that they can."

"Being a purposeful company is all about corporate character, not corporate add-ons. A purposeful company will have a very clear sense of its long-term social mission and will be guided by that in its decision-making."

"Making everyone in the organisation you work in feels as though they can be the very best version of them at work as happy, engaged people are always more willing to go the extra mile, think the creative solution and engage more positively with customers."

"Learning by making mistakes is the most effective way to progress."

"Listening without judgement and from there building strong relationships allows new ideas to come to fruition."

"If we tackle the entire global logistics chain as a whole and shift as much freight as we can from land and air to water we immediately transition to the lowest cost and lowest emission transport mode."

"There needs to be more courage, more pioneering spirit. There is a lot of it about in the waterborne sector. It may seem safer to wait to be a fast-follower but if no one leads we have a much harder time managing the inevitable transition and there will be more losses and failures as a result. Work collaboratively, build coalitions, share first mover risks."

"I think they lack ambition. The option of not reducing emissions in line with science means everything else we worry about is academic – there are few large scale business options on a frozen/flooded/burning planet – now is not the time for pragmatism but ambition."

"There is a huge growth potential in pioneering new sustainable solutions and putting the UK and EU at the forefront of the inevitable sustainability shift. Just because current rhetoric and hostility to global trade is top of our minds right now, it won’t always be so. Jaap is able to look past the current ‘noise’ and see opportunities."

"Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now"

"We are committed to providing excellent value and friendly, professional service and expertise to our customers, who trust us with their holiday plans. Being the UK’s largest independent travel agent means we have access to unparalleled choice and value, which we share with our customers through our network of branches around the UK, through our personal travel consultants who work from home, our virtual call centre, and our digital channels."

"overnight – not least in our scale and geography. That said, we were determined to stay true to our values and the family feel of our business, and we work hard to maintain that for our colleagues and our customers."

"Yes, technology is huge for us, from the state-of-the-art systems that are used by our retail network, Independence Group members and personal travel consultants, to our customer facing website – which we have invested in recently – to the App we are creating, and how we use AI. We are constantly developing how we improve our customer experience and business through technology."

"I feel this really isn't an award just for me, it's for all the people who have created the right environment for all those people to succeed and the apprentices and the young people themselves."

"I think that people pay too much attention to getting academic qualifications - not everyone can get them. There is a place in that whole system for well run apprenticeship schemes."

"“The reason why I am so passionate about apprentices and apprenticeships is that they have added the goods all the way through my career.""

"“I think I was seen as someone who got things done, a problem solver, but from my point of view that always involved getting the right people around the table.”"

"“The people currently running the council are not interested in empty rhetoric, they just want to get things done.”"

"You have to be able to live with uncertainty. You really have to dig in and persist because every deal gets tough. But to me it is all about the people that I am working with. I didn’t set this up to work with people I don’t want to work with. I set it up to work with people that I want to work with.”"

"Authenticity is crucial - you need to embody the values and behaviours that you want your business to espouse. I believe you have to be 'present' and visible. Your team needs to know you're in and that they have your support. You should be there for them in a crisis rather than create a culture of blame and fear. You cannot overestimate the importance of COMMUNICATION. Most people don't communicate anywhere near enough."

"Deal with the matter swiftly and decisively. Any prevarication only makes the crisis bigger, particularly once the press get hold of it."

"Life's too short not to do something you love doing and if you love your job you will probably do it well."

"Being part of a ‘club’ or network is something women need to get serious about. Networks aren’t just a ‘nice to have.’ They offer support – critical no matter what level you’re at – and they also make businesses sense."

"Once you are in a job you can build a team around you that will complement your skills."

"When in doubt just smile and smile and say nothing."

"Think about how to stand out as a candidate in your own right, not just a 'woman' coming through on the 'woman on boards' agenda – how to compete with the best men out there without making it about gender."

"Women often hold themselves back because they don't think they tick all the boxes. You need to be self aware enough to realise whether those boxes actually all need ticking – you will always learn a lot on the job."

"“I never felt that there was any barrier to me as a woman, and I always felt that there were people encouraging me.”"

""Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want.”"

"“Don’t circumscribe your own ambition – go for it – you might not get it – but go for it.”"

"If you force yourself to be a square peg in a round hole you’re never going to be that happy."

""Life is too short to push yourself to do jobs you think you ought to – just do jobs that make you happy, because if you’re happy the likelihood is you will do your job well and be successful.”"

""There’s never a right or wrong time to do it – your career will work around you having children.”"

"“Do I protect my life or my modesty? No contest.”"

"“I am very proud to have created and built Boom Pictures into one of the fastest growing indies by attracting some of the best talent in the industry.""

"“Crises never go away, they only get bigger.""

"This is Britain's premier railway and there is a lot of pride in it among staff and passengers. What we are doing is trying to put some pride back in the railway. It is a company that has failed twice, and that inevitably has an impact on the service."

"huge amount of respect" for Hogg but there is evident impatience in her words – a directness that is also remarked upon by former colleagues."

"Towards the end of National Express's tenure they were scrabbling around to make money in any way they could, like charging for reservations, and quality was suffering"

"It is very early days. We have been here less than a year and we have had a lot to do in that time,"

"I think that because I didn't get A-levels and a degree, I always wanted to prove that I was as good as anyone else and I worked very hard."

"Like many young girls, I wanted to be an air stewardess, but I discovered that there was a lot more to travel and transport than working on a plane."

"In truth, the problems go back to 2006. The operators worked hard to make their payments, but I think decisions were taken that were quite short-term, and we've now got to try to put some of that right."

"I would like to say my husband and the girls, but they are not my belongings, so my home, because that is where Charles i and all my treasured memories of family."

"There have been so many and I hope so many yet to come, but the Gap ad I did in the ‘80s was my personal fiftee minutes, especially chasing it round Trafalgar Square when it was on a bus, and then it was ten buses all together—genius."

"Tell your parents that you love them very much, keep your photo albums up to date, don’t be shy as no one is looking at you, don’t be angry, don’t throw away all your clothes from the ‘80s, and buy that hotel in Miami Beach when it was offered to you in the ‘80s."

"I basically looked at magazines with my mother every month. I remember it really well, sitting on the sofa and looking at Vogue magazine"

"That was one of those things I did with her. I also always loved watching films, the old black-and-white movies and seeing all the fashion in those, that’s what sparked my interest."

"It was all symptomatic of someone who was paid obscene amounts of money for doing something really quite basic, which was pretty useless in terms of the general lives of most people. He was just an average guy. He was probably in the top 0.1% of earners globally and I remember thinking: 'This is out of control',"

"It was really clear at the time how being in finance had changed. All the stories you hear about the excesses and the culture are actually true"

"It is the first time that social investment has been recognized so I feel that it puts the sector squarely on the map"

"It’s recognition that finance and business can be used for real social purpose. That perhaps there is an alternative to profit maximization no matter the cost and philanthropy as a way of dealing with the consequences."

"I would say that for an organization whose core purpose is social change, sustainability in the long term is critical both financially and socially; in fact, the two are inextricably linked."

"It’s important that financial and social sustainability go hand in hand, and that longer-term, intelligent and patient finance exists to support this concept."

"We are precluded from investing directly in the front line; it’s built into our governance. The reason for this is twofold."

"We were taught not to show up unless we had three new trends, so I learned quickly to observe what was going on and to recognise patterns"

"As long as I can remember I have always been thinking about magic in life and how things can be transformed."

"That was defining, I think. I have always felt like a citizen of the world, with a keen sense of what unites us. Had I never moved as a child, maybe I may not have been as entrepreneurial"

"I just never wavered in my belief,” she says. At the start, she adds: “I was a journalist. I had no business experience. But I did have innate people skills.” Her 15 years at Net-A-Porter, she says, “were my MBA. Very early on I realised that nobody was approaching the opportunity to serve consumers remotely and digitally in the way we were"

"We are seeing businesses in areas where consumers have previously been ignored, such as inclusive sizing"

"I came up with the name Imaginary when I left Net-A-Porter and I needed an email address, so I thought I’d better set up an LLC, though I didn’t know what it would be"

"If you could see three disparate indications of something new, and it didn’t matter if you saw it at a dinner party or on a bus, but if you saw three things that all pointed in one direction, you had a trend."

"The consumer wanted something new, but the stores were selling something old."

"And I thought, oh, wouldn’t it be amazing, if you could combine the impulse and the marketing of what was new, and allow the consumer to just click and magically receive something on their doorstep?"

"Sustainability is woven into everything we do as a business, from product development to supplier sourcing and auditing, packaging choices and giving, to operations and logistics."

"I truly believe that it’s through a holistic approach that we can drive real change and also support in educating our customers about the interconnected ecosystem making up their health."

"My journey began when I first developed IBS whilst in my early 20s. I spent a lot of my time (and money), trying different natural and pharmaceutical products to deal with my symptoms, which only made me feel worse. I couldn't find products that worked for me, or more importantly, that I wanted to take - that was really where the seed of The Nue Co. came from."

"We set out with a very simple aim, to change the way people feel about supplements."

"We always rely on data and science to kick off any sort of new product development. We look to ingredients as close to the food source as possible to deliver a nutrient or a vitamin, whilst focusing on absorption in its format"

"Starting my business] just made sense at the time"

"I feel like I had spent so many years, or maybe my whole life, gathering insights for THE NUE CO. From going to the herbalist with my mother to learning about vitamin B12 from my grandfather, who was a chemist. I felt like I had so much to offer to the category, and in all honesty, there was no job out there that really spoke to me, so I decided to create one"

"At that time [when we launched] (and for a while later), nothing else in my life mattered"

"I was working at a public school and I felt like I was back in middle school again with the social environment and at the end of the year, I wasn’t asked back because they said I didn’t fit in. There was nothing wrong with my teaching. I had letters from all my parents saying that everything was fine. The other teachers just thought that I didn’t fit in. So that was when I went for a formal diagnosis."

"The aftermath of my husband’s suicide starting with the night that he was found when I went to the house with the police there was just a nightmare. The first night there was just — Instead of being able to concentrate on what was happening with my husband"

"I had written a book and I wanted to do something more in not just writing it but trying to put something in place to help people not go through the same thing I did so I had some emails out to certain organizations"

"It is important to note that, as the colors were chosen with care, there were colors not chosen with just as much, if not more, deliberate care as a way of showing her acceptance of me."

"My gift has no green where green usually goes. The colorless parts of this gift speak volumes to me."

"I can’t look at them or think about them without being moved to tears. There are lots of good emotions in those tears. I can’t name them all, but I feel all the feels."

"I had been interviewed only by men, so I started thinking it was a career that only men did"

"Be thoughtful about how you manage meetings, how you manage your team, how you manage different personalities, cognitive styles and approaches"

"Independence matters precisely because electoral cycles are short and the temptation for political expediency is constant."

"Some skills translate: bringing people with you, creating space for challenge, focusing the team on the signal not the noise"

"But fund managers rarely receive any help with management. Firms often assume that if you can run money you can run people. That’s wrong"

"After the financial crisis, it was obvious that groupthink was dangerous. Back then, fewer than one in ten UK board seats were held by women."

"By modelling confident civility. You cannot build innovative organisations if people are afraid to ask awkward questions or express an unpopular view. We’ve allowed disagreement to become personalised."

"You have just as much a right to pursue this as anybody else. Realise half of the barrier is yourself. Get past your own barriers. Then somebody else blocking your path is nothing compared to that."

"Being pretty much the only woman and a woman of colour in my tech career I just had to survive."

"I don’t do this for money."

"The business was at death’s door, it had lost its confidence."

"In those days, I used to go home at night thinking ‘am I a going concern."

"For the first 12 months, I wondered if I would be able to pay the wages next month"

"I think what I am most proud of in my career is that if I look back to when I started work in a bank, counting cash and filling cash machines at 16, I could have never foreseen where my career and business life would go! I could never have guessed that I would end up buying the business, exiting the business, and then becoming a Dragon."

"I invested in Ed Hollands on Dragon’s Den; Ed has the ‘Driven Media’ business, which is a very simple business in the concept of advertising on the side of lorries."

"What I saw in Ed when he came through the doors was a very raw young man, but someone with a lot of potential."

"I love investing in young entrepreneurs. I am a big supporter of entrepreneurial hubs and accelerators."

"I have also done a lot of work with the Prince’s Trust, working with more disadvantaged, or less advantaged, young people, helping them to become successful either in long-term employment or as entrepreneurs."

"We’ve moved on from that, we’ve taken away uncertainty, which is good; that breeds positivity in British enterprise and the economy."

"I get more and more confident about what we’re doing all the time."

"We went online 10 years ago and it’s grown very organically."

"I was very happy when we were just retail but our customers were travelling all over the world and it made sense that they could shop with us when they weren’t in London."

"I don’t mind being older, at all."

"For me it’s all about health and vitality and feeling really well; that makes a huge difference."

"I remember one of the first artists I loved painted ballet dancers."

"We have the same approach to art that we do when buying fashion."

"Art has been woven into our lives. The children have taken it up, too. Our 15-year-old does wonderful paintings."

"They all had powerful personalities and a lot of it was expressed through their clothes."

"I was always fascinated by the power of clothes and how clothes and fashion are evolving."

"I would spend my Saturdays rifling through thrift stores and saving up for things I couldn’t afford."

"Tom smartly put computers in even back then and we gathered everyone’s address, and that became email, and so we already had all the data we were really connected to our customers by the time we launched online."

"They were all quite new at the same time as we were launching on the internet."

"So if we said to Erdem or Roksanda, “Help, we’ve run out of stock,” they would be incredibly helpful about making more for us."

"Honour the relationship between the customer/user and their digital footprint."

"Is the customer/user the predominant focus? – the proposition should be designed around them to get the best chance of being successful"

"What leadership is needed in this changed world? Admitting you may not know all the answers, prizing delegation rather than control, encouraging appropriate boldness over caution and value collaboration over individual effort."

"Ensure you have digital talent in your organisation."

"Today Waste Warriors has several projects working across tourist destinations in Himachal Pradesh. My heart will always lie in the Dharamshala but that project has reached a very difficult point,""

"The boys who work at Waste Warriors are like my brothers and I am ashamed that I can only pay them a meagre amount for the efforts they put in. They hike up and down the mountain, every week, in every season, in every state of health, just to pick up the garbage. They go from door to door collecting garbage from the homes that are brought down from the remote villages in the mountain for proper disposal"

"This is not a sexy industry, I know. There is a social stigma attached to the job I do and I understand that it is even harder for people to turn up, as they have, for the cleanups we have organised. Waste Warriors has helped provide employment to the lowest class of people in the country and a chance to live with dignity.""

"The money that the boys are making does not even cover the basic expense for the effort! The people refuse to participate and the shopkeepers do not wish to pool their benefits with the boys who are cleaning up. The people of Himachal are not willing to participate"

"People think that Waste Warriors has some kind of funding from like the Queen of England or something. In India, NGOs have such a bad reputation that people don't want to believe that there are a few organisations working honestly and transparently for years as they believe in the cause."

"I’m Client 1 of our own transformation...""

"I got quite a reputation for my Lotus skills"

"Once the highest value chunks are identified we synthesize the final answer and include citations back the underlying source documents”"

"But I think the ability to be able to scale every aspect of what we do; create key partnerships with the hyperscalers in terms of what we want to develop, invest in, procure and go to market with; it sets us up very nicely.”"

"“I think the bigger challenge, which we've all had on the cloud journey, is how you train your teams to work very closely with your partners and understand the capabilities, the economics, the telemetry and make sure that we are using it and scaling as best we can.”"

"One is [being] the technology officer who is responsible for all of the technology that powers McKinsey, all of the technology that we use to enable our clients; and then all of the platforms that enable both of those things.”"

"We still have a ways to go, but at least it's providing the ability for us to understand how we should be using Gen AI to be more agile and hopefully productive in our ability to serve our clients; to understand how we need to change our ways of working and the talent set required to do so"

"I was particularly interested in attending this series of talks because I personally love hearing about the journey that successful business people have taken to get to the positions they’re in now."

"Being kind will be considered cool"

"Are you ready to go."

"Have you done your best."

"Remember kindness in business & in life"

"Being astute and positive"

"Access what makes you happy"

"I encourage women at every level to recognize themselves as a leader"

"It was a difficult time for the entire travel industry, and we decided the best way for Airbnb to navigate the future was to go back to the company’s roots and focus on Hosts and great hosting."

"I’ve worked consistently on strengthening our relationship with existing Hosts, helping our Hosts adapt to the post-pandemic travel landscape and growing our Host community."

"Each time, I had to be willing to listen, acknowledge when I needed to learn and ask for help. Women, in particular, often feel we need to have an answer for everything to be taken seriously."

"In the current cost of living crisis, we also want to raise awareness about hosting as a path to meaningful income."

"Another way we’re helping our Hosts address rising costs is through our energy- efficiency programs. We launched our first programmes in the UK and France last year and we’re expanding to other countries this year."

"Anecdotally, how I had to change my business dialogue in negotiations and of what my expectations were, whether I was working in Europe, or when I went to Australia, how different that was than Paris."

"I’ve lived all over the world, I grew up in Hong Kong, and I married someone in the diplomatic service. With Disney, I lived in Australia, then back to Paris and then the U.S."

"The opportunity to work at Disney has been phenomenal. Living in Australia was the biggest family adventure. I remember talking with my husband, who at the time was deputy national security advisor, and he was the one who said, if we don’t go now, we will never go."

"Handmade Rooster footstools -they are exquisitely made at every stage of their production with bronze beaks and feet – you can even have them made to look like your own farmyard flock!"

"It’s personalisation all the way. It doesn’t matter really what the present is, it shows that you have put thought and energy into it and it’s always something to be remembered."

"I think my honeymoon – it was the first time I had been to the Far East and I was mesmerised. It was beautiful, fascinating and all about love."

"I think probably word of mouth – listening to friends descriptions of faraway places and then I start reading up about wherever and the more you read the more inspired and determined you are to get there!"

"My packing envelopes. You never have to unpack. One for t-shirts, one for swimwear, one for day dresses, one for evening dresses and so on. Perfect particularly when moving around a lot."

"London is home. A tour of the Houses of Parliament is a must- you have a fascinating hour and a half and get the entire history of Great Britain all under one impressive roof. The John Soane museum too."

"I’ve worked for Passenger for almost 3 years, beginning my career here in July 2018."

"I’m Head of Customer Services and am responsible for the customer service team and all interactions between Passenger and customers."

"I oversee any new customers at any level during the onboarding process – we run a very busy help desk for Premium account holders and end-users for myTrip."

"I was a working mum for a long time which affected my options, but I did make sure that I was abreast of changes that were happening as I looked for the best opportunities for me."

"I did plan my move to digital as I thought it would offer me more longevity, but my career was never plotted out from start to finish."

"I’m also proud of our team and their growth, having played a part in their progression as a manager. It’s very rewarding to help people achieve their career objectives."

"My mission is to continue to make sure the product offer is right for the high street retailer’s customers, and not “look over her shoulders” at what competitors are doing."

"Unconscious bias" had affected recruitment for the board, which decides when serious offenders in England and Wales can leave jail."

"Loss of confidence" among board members."

"It was obviously a very difficult period for the board."

"We saw the departure of our previous chair in difficult circumstances, the board was subject to unprecedented amount of publicity, the like of which we haven't experienced before, and I think there was a loss of confidence amongst ourselves a little bit."

"At the moment we have no black Parole Board members and that's of significant concern to me."

"There must have been some kind of unconscious bias in those processes, we're not going to have those processes next time around."

"If somebody is recalled back to custody and actually the risk doesn’t warrant it, then an executive release is a much faster process."

"I think there are arguments for making changes to the criminal justice system."

"have always believed we have lots to gain and nothing to lose by being more open about our work."

"Citing moves in recent years to hold hearings in public and publish decision summaries."

"Selling food on the streets is very uncertain. You’ve got to be a bit of a gambler and you’ve got to be really, really resilient and willing to get on with a lot of hard work. It’s really physical, but for those who ‘get it’, it creates an amazing energy to be around. I wanted to create more of that."

"I love consolidating talents. I wanted to create a new movement that provides strength in numbers for street traders and cultivates more people doing great food on the streets. Festival organisers prefer to deal with collectives rather than individuals."

"We want to democratise good food. The idea of 'street food' is being trendified as a career option. But we're saying: let's leverage this so it touches all cultures, not just middle-class life-changers."

"Ask yourself if you’re ready to get comfortable with nothing being predictable and flying by the seat of your pants for the foreseeable future. If you like to have certainty about your future, this may not be for you."

"My firm belief is that a lot of the businesses women are creating feel more lifestyle."

"And therefore when you’re going into that finance community, which is very male dominated, it’s quite difficult to get that connection and the genuine insight and understanding around those businesses."

"We're on this mission to try to enable tens of thousands of women, initially in the UK and then around the world, to be able to have that great flexible but sustainable business but with all that support and mentoring from us."

"I always get in trouble when I say I want to build a $1bn business, because our shareholders say ‘Nancy you shouldn’t be declaring all of that stuff’, But I do want to build a big business."

"‎It's the biggest short-form social knowledge library on the internet, I believe. We create the knowledge store, and we have interactive tools and community functions."

"About 60 per cent of the traffic comes in from natural search."

"The company also performs that little techie trick known as "search engine optimisation", so that if you want to know how to make the perfect teriyaki chicken, open a bottle of champagne without spilling any, or build your own cold-fusion nuclear reactor etc, it should come out pretty near the top of your Google search."

"I noticed that women were active in their communities and yes, they were talking about love, beauty, relationships, but the biggest thing I noticed was that that were also talking about wanting to start a business."

"I started and ran Women in Business for five years, and we did mentoring around the country."

"I sat on the beauty industry trade board CEW and I saw so much innovation in beauty."

"‎I wanted to create a brand new concept and it’d have to be steeped in personal service."

"It had to be in private homes yet still be social because we all like to share."

"They use video shot by their consultants. They leverage the enthusiasm, passion and professionalism, of those consultants to promote the business"

"It is lonelier when you become the sole founder, But I always try to remember that I haven’t done this alone."

"I am a great believer in the power of networks, For instance, a belong to a network of female founders. We meet once a month for breakfast and talk about particular challenges that we face and the solutions"

"In London, the support network is remarkable,” she says. “There is a lot of help for founders who are working on their own."

"It’s important to know where you want to go and what you want to do, And then you build the tech team around that vision.Tech is an enabler. You don’t need to be able to code, but you do need a team that you can trust."

"The first and most important point is to stay calm. The world is obviously changing around us all the time, but we need to keep a clear head in order to react and communicate effectively."

"This is a time for bottom-up planning. Don’t be afraid to think radically because that is, in fact, what’s needed at a time of crisis."

"Should people remain working at home? How do we manage this when some staff want to come into the office, and some definitely don’t?"

"Developing a central scenario will involve deciding how you’re going to deal with your property, your staff, or your suppliers as the the situation develops. Clarity is key for everyone involved, and a central scenario will help you to achieve it."

"Your people are your key assets, so it’s important to focus on well-being, morale, and listening."

"Well, I guess the digital transformation that has happened, the way the world is, the consumer world is seeing it, in the use of digital technology for communication because of the COVID crisis."

"Most startups fail. So that's the first thing you need to know. Even when you're a VC, it's almost 50%. So you got to write more than one check."

"have always been drawn to growth. I love the opportunities that growth creates, as well as the chance to have a positive impact on so many people, not just your customers, but your employees."

"Growth within business is exhilarating and rewarding, but it isn’t without its challenges."

"I’ve faced up to a lot. But I’ve never let anyone hold me back and I’ve met tough challenges head on. And I know working in government will be challenging."

"I’m proud to be joining a government which puts a modern approach at its core. Take the new Office for Investment – a scaled-up, more coherent, joint No 10-HMT-DBT investment agency."

"It really does feel like we’re in this new era of cybersecurity,"

"The arms race will absolutely continue, I really don’t think it’s very long until this [AI] innovation gets into the hands of attackers, and we will see these very highly targeted and specific attacks that humans won’t necessarily be able to spot and defend themselves from."

"It’s not going to be these futuristic Terminator-style robots out shooting each other, it’s going to be all these little pieces of code fighting in the background of our businesses. In my time here at Darktrace"

"It’s only something I’m aware of when I’m doing interviews or when I’m at an industry event and suddenly you see a sea of men staring back at you,"

"Definitely the Fourth Plinth project in Trafalgar Square. I was determined to fill that empty plinth! It took five years of campaigning with my committee at the Royal Society of Arts, but we did it."

"My restaurant in the Seventies and Eighties was the place to be. I’ve cooked for most of the Royals, Elton John, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Alec Guinness… the list goes on. They all loved my food – at least, I hope they did!"

"while cooking for 300 at Vintners Hall, I mistakenly thawed beetroot puree instead of raspberry for the vanilla ice cream. I added sugar and lemon juice, used it anyway, and guess what? Nobody noticed!"

"Every school child should learn 10 basics: Shepherd’s Pie, Spag Bol, Pizza, Curry, Salad Nicoise, Omelette, Quiche, Ratatouille, Trifle, and Apple Pie. These recipes will make you a hit at uni and set you up for life!"

"Our first job was to deal with the concrete. The previous tenant farmer couldn’t make money out of his farm"

"If you’ve had a quarrel, a walk in the garden calms things down"

"Over the years, it’s proved wise not to say anything"

"Well, I thought it was better to know what people thought. But it doesn’t make any difference. I’m not really sure how I’m perceived now. But the thing is… it is really normal – most of the time."

"We were pretty much the only ones doing this sort of thing when we started. It was really clear almost from the start that this was going to work. I got help from other mums – paperwork and that kind of thing… I think it’s easier to start a business when you’re young. You’re less aware of the pitfalls and maybe you have less of a lifestyle to lose."

"James would get picked up – very occasionally by someone else – and come back to the office and be here with me"

"I was often finished by 6pm and I didn’t have a long train journey. I think it’s really good to work. It was part of the children’s lives – it still is – and they’d come and help."

"They did a lot of modelling. Catherine was on the cover of one of the catalogues, blowing out candles. Later on, she did some styling and set up the First Birthday side of the business. Pippa did the blog. I still value their ideas and opinions."

"If I come across as normal, that would be great, because that’s what I am"

"Make sure whatever you do doesn’t compromise your family, because that becomes untenable. And don’t be afraid to ask questions."

"I couldn’t do it without Mike and my team"

"Many retail business are just watching with horror almost at the mess that has been created."

"I think many retail business are just watching with horror almost at the mess that has been created and how it’s so late, and from a business point of view you would never, never leave everything to the last minute."

"That ability to deliver pretty low inflation or even deflation in non-food over the last five years or so has been dependent on frictionless movement of goods across borders, and to the extent that goods are imported from the EU, or from countries that the EU has a trade deal with, as there are no tariffs on those goods coming in."

"If we’re on WTO tariffs, and if we have any friction at the borders, that will put costs up for retailers and hence prices up for consumers."

"I was gobsmacked by it at the time because back then you were routinely talking hundreds of thousands of pounds for some of these larger “gold standard” government projects."

"I’d never really been all that aware of the scale of it all when seeing statistics quoted in the newspaper until I started working in the industry."

"Being innovative is crucial in our line of work, and yes it brings a lot of value to try something."

"I believe you don't have to do something new for the sake of doing something new, just consider things that have worked well so far."

"I honestly don't think a day goes by, certainly a week, where I don’t learn something from each other."

"We're always learning from each other, which I think that is really valuable."

"They were opening shops like ­billy-o as loads of people were buying things on credit. At that time you did not have to be a great retailer to enjoy a measure of success. But now it is the customer in charge and digitalisation is largely driving it."

"The digital revolution has had a major impact on the way consumers shop. It’s a game-changer."

"Technology is giving rise to a pace of change that we have not ever seen before. For the customer it’s great."

"Customers don’t care what shopping channel they use."

"It is a great opportunity for retailers as it provides small retail businesses with a shop window to the world, driving exports of British products rather than just being a physical place in the community."

"This was in Texas in August which is really hot and humid. And I had no idea that I didn’t drink enough water before I went out to run."

"And I passed out from dehydration. And luckily, someone was driving down the street and rescued me. But I thought after that, you know it really isn’t a good idea to run without water."

"And I literally just went into an art store and found some clay, and molded it into what I though the product would look like. I had a band that I added to it. And I put a little cap in the clay."

"And it looked really silly, but it did work. I mean the product didn’t work, but you could see what it looked like."

"I happened to find this person through a friend who sold products, so that’s the only way I knew how to start, was just in the beginning was ask a lot of questions, and that’s really what an entrepreneur should be doing, is okay"

"I am jealous of the people that are coming into the industry right now, it's an ultra-exciting time.""

"If I can help encourage more people to come into this great Automotive industry and really be proud of what they're doing, then I think it's all worthwhile.""

"It wasn’t my career plan."

"I was a clinician, but at East London NHS Foundation Trust I was encouraged to take on management and leadership responsibilities so I kind of fell into it really."

"From a very young age, I assumed that I would have to work harder to do well."

"There were some jobs I did not get but I don’t know if that was because I’m a woman or because of my ethnicity."

"They should ask themselves the question: ‘Does race really matter?’ and they should not just follow the WRES because they have been told they have to."

"They need to have a debate around why it matters."

"You are always going to need highly specialised individuals, But the pandemic has highlighted the need for greater versatility and adaptability within healthcare."

"What is required in Northumberland will be different to Devon, to London to Kent, etc."

"HEE will work closely with providers to understand differing service designs and models."

"We are in a unique position, we act as a convener between a host of organisations and educational institutions."

"We can use our extensive connections to bring people together to bring together people under a common purpose of driving improvements in health education and training."

"We may have to run double programmes for people to catch up on what they have missed."

"Who will increasingly look to foster closer ties to the various Royal colleges and to develop new ways to maintain and even enhance learning."

"Leadership is something that everybody in an organization can demonstrate and take on at different points in time, no matter their rank or professional identity."

"We don’t make the most of all the assets that we have in terms of our people in the health service."

"We have the same old solutions, the same old people, coming up with the same old answers."

"Diversity brings new ideas, new solutions, and a wider range of understanding about the subtleties of culture, behavior, and values."

"Some of our leaders talk about the need for diversity of opinion and diversity of thought without necessarily acknowledging that we need more women."

"It is shameful, I could tell you stories from my own experience from when I was a trainee right up to last year."

"It is a significant problem; it is everywhere."

"I think we have to ask ourselves and be much more aware of what’s going on around us."

"There are some really practical things that we can do."

"We must change attitudes and behaviour."

"It is really important that every organisation signs up."

"Get some practical experience that will help you place in context some of the learning you’ve had and apply it in the real world. That gives you a real start in being able to decide what you want to do.""

"We’ve had to work hard at helping people understand that jobs at McDonald’s are good quality jobs with prospects. Over half of my executive team started off working in restaurants"

"It’s important for businesses to reach out but also for universities to reach into business and really understand what skills and capabilities those businesses are looking for.""

"What we tend to do is spot trends and then democratise them. An example would be cappuccinos and lattes – we saw these were growing as a trend and we thought there was an opportunity to [provide] great tasting, ethical, good quality coffee but at exceptional prices, more conveniently than some of our competitors.""

"In my early adulthood, I spent three years in Israel, with Judaism as part of my everyday. Back in the UK, I wanted to make Judaism part of my everyday here, too — and found that Progressive Judaism matches my value system, my integrity, and the way I live."

"As Progressive Jews, we have a unique approach to how we balance commitment to our textual tradition with our commitment to moral freedom and our sense of engagement with our place in wider society."

"omething that sets Progressive Judaism apart is our full inclusion of mixed-faith couples and families, with non-Jewish members able to retain their own faith or no faith."

"We believe that Progressive Judaism has a twofold purpose: to be a force for good in the world, playing an active role in shaping a society that reflects our Jewish values; and to transform and strengthen Jewish life in this country so it’s rich, inclusive, and innovative."

"We believe that we can best achieve this as one united movement, now representing one third of all Jews who are affiliated to synagogues in the UK — and we’ll be better able to reach out to all who identify as Jewish, but have not yet joined a community."

"It now feels like an unbelievable privilege"

"We have spent the last two years in the heart of our congregations."

"And now to be able to be here, at this moment of incredible privilege – something I didn’t think I would see in my entire career."

"Being able to retain your composure under this kind of intense scrutiny and yet continue treating others with respect and humanity is the mark of a fine leader.”"

"The best leaders today exhibit what we call beneath-the-surface qualities, which fit into two categories: capacity – what they are capable of doing – and character – how they respond when dealing with new challenges or the unknown.”"

"Leaders inspire by modelling the behaviours they want to see and by raising the energy of their team and the entire organisation through clear, consistent and transparent communication. Leaders who communicate well set the expectations for those who follow them."

"When I completed the report of the King’s Fund’s first Commission on the future of health services in London I was drained."

"It was an immensely complex and politically sensitive piece of work. I definitely wanted to do something different. I also had the pious notion that I ought to pitch in and try to make some of the necessary changes happen"

"In our former business model we had 90+ partnerships with Local Authorities running different I CAN programmes, which we were immensely proud of."

"But as austerity bit we could see the writing on the wall: Local Authorities were being hollowed out and budgets were being devolved to schools and early years settings. We had to make a shift which we termed ‘moving from wholesale to retail’."

"We were immensely lucky to have a great deal of help from our friends at The Makaton Charity, since – with their full permission and active aid – we copied their business model and applied it to I CAN Programmes."

"t’s wonderful to have incredible support from Openreach who sponsor us to help give children the ability to communicate."

"Children up and down the country can take part and improve their own skills while helping thousands of others who are not at their level. We called for this national year of communication back in 2007, and truly believe this is the spotlight we need to raise the roof, and sing the loudest to make the difference that is so badly needed"

"UtterBerry is currently classed as an SME and we are headquartered in London. Last year we announced that Utterberry is opening its new manufacturing and innovation hub in Leeds, England and we are looking to expand into other countries in the coming years."

"Our technology is developed with a long-term vision, not just adding technology but making sure it’s useful technology, working with partners to approach problems that our technology can solve both now and in the future."

"During a state visit a few years ago, when I had the honour of meeting the His Majesty the King and Her Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands, I became involved with NBCC."

"I was invited to Mansion House in London to demonstrate our technology and speak about UtterBerry’s work on Crossrail. After this, I became involved in various NBCC meetings, working on ways to increase trade between our countries."

"I believe that the trade links between the Netherlands and UK are very important, and that because of these long-term ties we are trusted partners."

"We are going to see massive changes related to AI. In the next 5-10 years, engineering is going to embedded into every aspect of life and will play a bigger role"

"Within this climate, a group of women founded the Women’s Engineering Society. Not only to resist this pressure, but also to promote engineering as a rewarding job for women as well as men"

"The home used to be very labour intensive. After all, with the advent of electricity the work load was eased and women began to search for employment."

"There are exciting opportunities for everyone, regardless of their background. Although there are still a lot of barriers to women entering the industries"

"There are more opportunities now. Flexible working is now much more widely available. It’s key that women who return to work can come back at the same level and have support of initiatives like mentoring"

"We need to see senior leaders not just simply saying the right things. They must be embedding them within the practices of their organisations,” says Bodley. “Culture change can take years, but is so important"

"Research shows that when you reach a representation of 30%, a group stops feeling like a minority,” say Bodley. “It’s ambitious, but not unrealistic."

"we need to introduce young women to female role models working in STEM, enabling them to see the vast range of opportunities for brilliant careers open to them. That’s the most effective way to dispel persistent stereotypes which still inhibit them."

"We went round to all our shareholders and said these are the options, what would you like."

"One of the alternatives was to go into some kind of run-off, which would be fine if our shareholders wanted that."

"They want a strong listed private equity sector."

"There is huge execution risk to such a plan, I can’t promise what the outcome would be."

"But we are happy to ask shareholders to a vote if that is what they want."

"I am looking forward to joining Pollen Street and working with the Board and the executive team."

"The private markets are set for significant growth, and Pollen Street’s expertise, track record and focus on industry shaping structural changes make this an exciting time to come on board."

"I look forward to contributing to the firm’s continued success."

"We will not be going back where we were."

"There was too much leverage for that cycle and not enough diversification."

"I don’t think that our record from the crisis would indicate that this model is a busted flush."

"SVG’s market value is now nearly £1bn."

"That’s the nice thing about private equity, you can look quite far in advance at funds that you might be getting into."

"We’re quite close to managers, so we’ve got a pretty good idea of when they’re going to come back to market."

"But we as investors would not be comfortable assuming that this will continue."

"At some point this cycle is going to tip and you’re not going to be able to hide behind market beta or quantitative-easing beta."

"‎I am quite comfortable with the cash."

"To put it bluntly, we need to get some in the door."

"Every time I meet him, I ask him if he has any bricks with him."

"SVG awaits 'wall of cash' to kick start commitment."

"Co-viewing is really, really important"

"If you want scale, you have to be careful about how niche you get"

"As an organisation, we don’t sit still…We look at every opportunity, we have huge ambitions for the UK"

"Pay television needs to be about more than just films and football. The consumer can’t be expected to fund all of Sky’s investments and get less and less choice in return"

"Write a list at the end of your working day of everything you have got to do tomorrow. That way you can kind of leave it at work and pick it up the next day"

"time, money and lives” had been saved and would “continue to inform our decisions as we tackle some of the most challenging issues of our day"

"ensuring a fair recovery from the pandemic and a just transition towards achieving our net-zero ambitions"

"AI is a huge opportunity for Scotland and for our businesses"

"Organisations across all sectors – hospitality, engineering, financial services, tourism, healthcare – will all be users and adopters of technology."

"they can improve productivity because they have more automated decision-making. Ultimately, we’re trying to make sure that we drive the economic successes that technology can bring."

"From a societal perspective this will create opportunities and jobs"

"There will be a huge amount of upskilling and reskilling – it’s about providing opportunities to learn and grow and develop in those new skills. It’s really important for us as a nation, for our citizens, for our children, that we get this right."

"Predominantly at the start, there were a lot of organizations that were progressive in their thinking. Scotland has a very significant financial services sector and fintech sector, and those organizations understood that they needed to use data."

"And I think the public awareness of the impact of data has increased significantly across those seven years. We’ve seen throughout that time the expansive use from the tech giants, their use of data in the solutions that they build. And the impact of that has become much more prevalent in society."

"People have certainly joked that I have a way with bearded billionaires"

"But I think Branson and Benioff have a lot in common: neither take no for an answer, both are clear on their vision, and both are extremely passionate about creating business with purpose. That’s something that really resonates with me"

"I always thought I’d much rather run a business than criticise one"

"I honestly didn’t know that much about Salesforce. I hadn’t actively applied for the job and I wouldn’t have taken it had I not felt fully aligned with Marc’s vision and values"

"My 17-year-old daughter would tell you that I can’t even sort out my social media accounts and here I am trying to run a tech company,"

"I found it very difficult actually"

"Virgin Money was my baby. I devoted 25 years of my life to it. I’d set it up from scratch, stayed with it and made lots of personal sacrifices. When it came time to sell the business, that was definitely the right thing to do."

"But as the CEO, you are right in the thick of getting the deal closed to the very, very end. Then you sort of fall out of the business and think gosh, now I need to think about myself."

"There’s an awful lot of headhunters that give people career advice as they move into professional life. There’s not very many that give people advice on the way out."

"There’s a small bunch of us that are my sort of age, who’ve held senior jobs in the City and we’ve all headed to a change of job or retirement and experienced a sudden feeling of ‘gosh, life went really quickly, what do I do next and how do I do it?"

"It’s always nice to be recognised, but I think it’s a recognition for all the good work that the organisation is doing."

"I was a tennis player growing up, that was my obsession. I came on a tennis scholarship to the US and then ended up graduating and doing a masters (in sports management and business)."

"There’s been learnings from all of the roles. My learning has been there are many more similarities and synergies than there are differences. I wanted to take this job because I felt I could make a positive impact right out of the gate,"

"Where I've sort of focused my attention is on the marketing and commercial side. We needed to generate more revenue, so that we could invest in our athletes and sports and new initiatives."

"Driving commercial interest and marketing appeal is absolutely vital because we're dependent on ourselves to generate revenue"

"Last season, we had our best season ever on the snow across all of our sports, and we had record revenues and marketing growth. And I hope this season we will see more of the same. I'm pleased about the progress that we're making, but we still have have a long way to go."

"I look at it as a very virtuous circle. The more participants and fans we can engage with via our clubs and other programs at the grassroots level ultimately brings more strength to the pipeline and the development side of the sport, which ultimately should lead to even more success at the elite level."

"I think that further engagement of broadening the base and providing the right support ultimately leads to more commercial interest, as well, from brands and donors and others."

"I had to do two internships and I remember applying to a student internship at InStyle, because I have known them from the US. At that time InStyle was still relatively new and unknown."

"I ended up doing both internships in the fashion department which clearly shows how comfortable I felt in that sphere."

"I realized that I really wanted to work in this field after finishing my course."

"I also realized quickly that writing would not be an option for me and that I would much rather create concepts for fashion and flat lay pages."

"I slowly but continuously followed my passion and my own path from a fashion assistant to a junior editor, then into an editor role and ultimately as to become the fashion director."

"After 14 amazing years, I changed in 2016 to Stylebob.com as their Editorial Director, building the whole editorial team from scratch."

"It has always been about bringing outstanding clothes to women."

"The subject of sustainability was for me, like for many others, not really present at that time."

"The wearness wants to provide a smart shopping alternative."

"You can shop fair, transparent fashion with a clean conscience without cutting back on style and quality."

"We all love fashion."

"As long standing fashion editors, we all witnessed how the fashion industry has changed over the last few years."

"The industry has been becoming faster and more and more ephemeral."

"Collections change more often than ever and the worldwide textile consumption has doubled since 2000."

"More and more clothes go straight from the shelves into the wardrobe and straight from the shelves to the landfill."

"Fashion has no meaning anymore. It has become a disposable good."

"There are many different experiences that inform how I function in the company today."

"I grow up with a big Italian Irish family had the greatest impact."

"I spent a lot of time around my extended family and they taught me so much about the tendencies and perspectives of The Silent Generation."

"I used to sit in her office listening to her coach salespeople on how to build their businesses, and that exposure laid the foundation for my own career in sales."

"I founded JDSG in February of 2020."

"I had no idea that occupancy challenges would be top of mind for everyone in senior living almost 30 to 60 days later."

"Resolving occupancy challenges was my mission before the pandemic, but aligned nicely with the needs that everyone was experiencing."

"I believed I could improve sales performance while also teaching organizations to value the prospective family experience."

"I’m drawn to coaching because I have so much primary experience selling in the field, and I understand the pressures sales directors face daily."

"I’ve worked with adult children and prospective residents, and until you sit in front of families and understand what reservations, needs and concerns they have, a strategy will not be effective."

"Training is essentially the introduction of new or updated content."

"It can get people motivated and create a foundation for learning new skills."

"Coaching focuses on sales execution it’s the implementation of those skills that impacts results."

"I use NOI because I want my clients to have clear, actual concrete measures of progress."

"I want them to be confident that our program is delivering the results they want."

"I can collect ideas, bundle them, summarize them and pass them on at the right time."

"We make the trends of the shop visible and want to inspire."

"It’s new and exciting, it’s the natural advancement of my previous job."

"It is particularly exciting to see results directly and to be able to react more quickly to topics."

"I work with both the editorial team on topics on the page and for the newsletters as well as with the styling team on the looks, which can be seen on the page."

"My work is more analytical and, of course, there are some technical details that I have not used before in my work."

"In the editorial team, there is the graphic, photo and text editing."

"I now work more spontaneously on topics, which is a great advantage."

"At that point I’d done a few really successful talent-based equity partnerships, where the talent took equity in the brand. When I saw how well they went, I was like, ‘I’m going to do one of these for myself!"

"The idea for Good American came about because I thought there was a shift happening in popular culture."

"When I was coming up through the ranks everybody was stick thin, and that was what most women aspired to. But it’s so different now"

"I thought fashion was missing this. It wasn’t about plus-size or regular size, instead I thought there should be brands that are made for everybody. So that’s how Good American started"

"This is how we feel, and if you’re kind of with us jump on board.’ We had this huge public casting with 12,000 people, and we had to shut it down because we didn’t know how we’d count them all."

"When you come to LA as an English girl, you find a whole new world of hair and makeup. I’ve kind of embraced that."

"Here's the thing: Work-life balance is your problem, that's yours to figure out"

"Because the way we run organizations now is that no one misses dentist appointments or a doctor's appointment or a haircut or their kid's parent-teacher conference ... that's just not how we work anymore, right?"

"You come in, you have set hours, but there's flexibility within your working life. It's not like 'Oh my goodness, such and such is not at their desk.' That's just not how we work anymore."

"When somebody talks to me about their work-life balance in an interview process, I'm like, 'Something is wrong with you. You haven't been able to figure that out. That's not the way you win this interview"

"Work life balance is fine for the owner to ignore who makes 20x my salary! Massive red flag,"

"I loved my visit to Weston Green School this week and especially my chats with the School Councillors. This group of Yrs 3-6 shared with me their ideas on how to change our country - they had some innovative ideas on housing, were very keen on environmental protection and cared deeply about their local community."

"It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Butler. I thank the hon. Member for Newport West and Islwyn (Ruth Jones) for securing this debate, which is as important as it is timely—I am pleased to be speaking today as we break for the Easter recess."

"The right to practise one’s faith freely, without hindrance or discrimination, is fundamental. The Liberal Democrats have a proud history of liberal universalism."

"We believe that all people should be able to live their life free from fear, including fear of religious intolerance; that human rights are applicable everywhere; and that the universal declaration of human rights, which enshrines the freedoms of thought, conscience, faith and religious practice, has the same resonance now as it did when it was enshrined almost 80 years ago."

"It is distressing, therefore, to see Christians across the world persecuted and, worse still, to know that for many the situation is deteriorating. Today, at least 318 million Christians live lives subject to high levels of persecution and discrimination—an increase of 12% on 2021."

"Moreover, the number of countries that Open Doors considers to be conducting extreme or very high levels of persecution against Christians tripled in the past decade from 23 nations to 60."

"My problem is that I try to do too many things - I never say no to anything"

"My ex-boss at Capital said one of the things he'd miss most about me is the 15 minutes at the beginning of a meeting when I don't turn up."

"In my previous job I used to struggle quite a lot with IT - I wouldn't have been seen dead with a laptop a year ago"

"I'd been there three days, but thought that if I at least had the presentation then I could blag it. Then I found out there was no presentation. In the end my old PA sent over a PowerPoint manual - it was the most appalling presentation ever, but very good for me."

"She's the best person I've ever worked for; I've learned more from her than I have in my entire life. She makes me look like a part-timer."

"She was an absolute inspiration for all of us; I've never known anyone throw themselves into their work so much. She's absolutely passionate about everything she does. She's a whirlwind, with real fire in her belly"

"Media owners are too old to cope with new technology"

"My parents had to learn to watch television, and I've had to learn the internet"

"f you learn a language when you're three years old, you'll be fluent, and if you learn when you're 23 you'll have an accent. All of us will have an accent when using technology"

"The question for all of us is not what is going to happen to our brand because of podcasting and all these wonderful tools - it's not about that"

"They might be able to podcast, but most people in the world are boring and they've got nothing to say."

"In football, we start with an advantage. Everyone that works in the game loves it and this unites us. I think of The FA as three very different organisations: a governing body responsible for rules and regulations"

"My organisational style is based on two principles which I hope are making The FA a better organisation. First, what’s the aim?"

"Whether it is an opportunity we are trying to grasp or a problem we are trying to solve, it’s very important that we all understand the question we are trying to answer. Second, who’s accountable?"

"There can be only one person. And if that’s always the CEO, that’s limiting. In my experience, the best organisations have a depth of management talent who are clear on their accountabilities.""

"It’s really important that you know how things work in practice. One of the first things I did was to ask somebody to show me how we generate revenue, how we decide to allocate funding and how we track the return on that investment."

"Once I understood that, it helped me to work with our executives to review and set priorities. I see my job as to run the board and our council and to work with them to shape our strategy."

"Our executives then communicate and deliver on that strategy. I try hard to give them space to do that, hopefully recognising when they need support to do so.""

"The people around the boardroom are a powerful statement of your leadership. I wanted to create a winning team. Finding talent, selecting it, appointing and developing it – that’s a huge privilege as a leader. I spend a lot of time communicating with people on our board, making sure they feel connected."

"The expectations and gender stereotyping start at birth."

"We’ve got to support women in sport, but we need everyone to be participating."

"The resistance to change comes because it feels like something has been taken away from them."

"There’s no reason why a male coach can’t learn to be brilliant at supporting girls and women through all of those different things that they won’t have experienced themselves."

"With me, I think it’s just always trying to step away so that I can see what’s actually important."

"I think we see that the increased coverage has had a big impact. We need to remember that when we last looked at this, three or four years ago, about 4% overall of sports coverage was of women. We saw from your earlier evidence that the BBC now says that 30% of its coverage is female, although that still means twice as much is men’s. We know that there has been an impact. At the elite level there has been a shift: interestingly, it has been in cricket, rugby and football, which were the traditionally male team sports"

"There is still some coverage of netball, but virtually none. That was the major team sport for girls—and hockey, of course—before we were allowed to play those other big three sports. There still needs to be change at the top but, yes, that movement is very exciting. It is actually moving, for all of us who have been so frustrated by this."

"The culture is slow to shift, though, isn’t it? The shift has not yet happened; we still have this heavy, early years stereotyping meaning that, on arriving at school, girls have less ability to throw, kick and catch a ball than boys."

"We do a lot to try to catch boys up with their fine motor skills when they join school, because they tend to be behind with writing, but we should be making sure that generalist primary teachers are fully aware that the girls are arriving with lower skills in sporting areas, so that there is extra to make up for that."

"We have some really important principles, one of which is that AI works alongside humans, so it doesn't replace them"

"The second is the data and the insights that you gather from AI belong to the Creator and not the IT partner."

"That's important because, you know, companies are putting a lot of their own intellectual property into this, and then the third is the one I mentioned earlier, which is you've got to have AI that's true, transparent, explainable and free from harmful content and biases.”"

"So we work with Wimbledon, the US Masters, the Open and we just did a big piece with Sevilla Football Club, where we're helping them with talent scouting using AI"

"But with Wimbledon and the others, you know, we're using AI for AI commentary, for example, predicting who's going to go through to the next round"

"That's really more about how do you drive a fan engagement, not just at the tournament but in the rest of the world where people are watching and trying to engage, so some quite interesting applications."

"If you think about the plethora of organisations out there and public sector bodies, just making it easier for employees is a huge opportunity to gain productivity and just to not do some of the grunt work."

"There’s a parallel I’m seeing now in the robotics space,” she tells TechCrunch. “People need much quicker ways to get applications spun up and deployed fast, but also more reusable."

"We’re really about trying to unlock the economic potential of industrial robotics and give a lot more businesses and developers real access to it,” the executive tells TechCrunch."

"Not just AI specialists or robotics PhDs. Give access to more folk who can really build applications more quickly with it."

"IT’s an ecosystem-level platform, so we’ll be providing a system for other companies to add their hardware and software skills around it"

"Humanity is entering a golden age for intelligent robotics,” Phoenix says in a post tied to today’s news. “Combining efforts represents a huge leap forward for our shared mission"

"One of the reasons we got together was the people,” Tan White explains. “We genuinely have a common mission, overall."

"We all want to democratize robotics. We all believe it’s critical to humanity to have access to this kind of automation and it will change how the world makes and produces."

"My mum was a woman in tech; so was her boss and her boss’s boss"

"They’d give you a problem and you’d literally write out the program on a piece of graph paper, post it back and they would tell you whether you were right or not"

"What we are focused on is ensuring that we can provide content that is ready to go for our customers to use, and that is where our focus is at the moment."

"Adaptability is really important — the style and the way that you do things has to change according to the environment. There are times where you step up and lead, but there are equally times where you can lead in a more informal manner."

"I have always wanted to work in an organization that is global. Whilst these situations are tough, I have found retaining a sense of humor and understanding cultural nuance has been vital to not take things like that too personally."

"Philanthropy can help by injecting resources to both insulate coverage from cutbacks and accelerate important reporting projects. Grants can give newsrooms the runway they need to deepen their coverage, experiment with new approaches, help make important shifts toward greater diversity, and confront relentless threats from misinformation."

"It will help to sustain what we do, grow what we do, and add new and incremental journalism services for the industry.The state of local news is at an actual point of critical crisis, and we see this exacerbating further."

"We felt that this is the ecosystem the AP has supported since its founding and that it's a space that we need to step in and help shore up."

"Our intellectual property has to be protected. Why is that important? Because we put journalists on the frontlines every single day. We’ve just talked about the huge number of risks that come with that. And that’s why we have to protect our intellectual property and [second] we have to achieve a fair value for that."

"We’re a licensing business so we have a good framework … I think it is really important where those two principles can be respected — that you get independent fact-based and nonpartisan journalism information or content into the training of these algorithms."

"It is now 18 months since the Post Office began operating independently of Royal Mail."

"The Post Office is going through a period of great change and innovation. We are resolute in our determination to build a flourishing modern business but one that remains the bedrock of communities across the country."

"There’s no point the Government subsidising the Post Office just to be an anchor in the community, we have to provide services so that everybody uses us too."

"Despite the expansion of online shopping, until recently some post offices were still opening from 9am to 5pm, closed half-day Wednesday, closed half-day Saturday, closed all day Sunday. And if you don’t offer the hours customers need, they take their business elsewhere."

"Already … we’ve seen a big improvement across the divisions,” she says, adding: “It’s about bringing the Post Office back into the modern world so it can be relevant for people now as it was 30 years ago."

""People care desperately for the Post Office. Very often it’s the subpostmaster or mistress that notices that an elderly customer hasn’t turned up recently and finds out what’s happened to them.”"

"I was given much information and, as the Inquiry has heard, there was information that I wasn’t given and others didn’t receive, as well. One of my reflections on all of this is that I was too trusting. I did probe and I did ask questions and I’m disappointed where information wasn’t shared."

"at the end of day, it’s not a partnership between two organisations, it’s a partnership between the people who work in these organisations. So my team and your team, and you and me and our chairs, you know, all those different levels. Those relationships need to be strong and nurtured and continually, I guess, renewed and built upon."

"Yeah, so my very first job in the sector was actually my very first job out of university. I worked with (…), I’m so proud to say work there. I loved that job. Worked for two amazing bosses. It makes such a difference."

"And yeah, it was really keen to pursue a career in the charity sector, but actually found it, it was it was very hard to get into."

"think I’m probably safe to say no. And it’s funny, whenever people kind of describe NCVO in those terms, I suddenly get this overwhelming kind of complex of Oh, my goodness, am I actually supposed to be doing this job?"

"But yeah, it’s safe to say I’ve always been really ambitious. I’ve always been really ambitious. And I heard… it’s interesting. You talk to a lot of sector CEOs."

"It’s unlikely to have escaped your notice that we are in an election year. It’s therefore more important than ever for the voluntary sector to engage with all political parties to share our vision for society and the policies needed to achieve it."

"While we’ve made strides recently engaging with the government, and have a strong advocate in civil society minister Stuart Andrew, the fallout of over a decade of austerity cannot be solved with a roundtable, or two."

"People regret far more what they don’t do rather than what they do."

"I have a right to be at the top table in business."

"“I try to define myself personally by my job to deliver on those two things first first rather than by my gender. But I recognize the responsibility I have as a leader, in brackets a little bit, as a role model, because you’re just more visible whether you like it or not.""

"The part of our trust agenda is being a modern employer where whoever you are … you can bring the very best version of yourself to work without fear of any kind of inappropriate behavior."

"“I don’t think anyone can fully explain how to prepare you for what it’s like to be a CEO until you’re actually on the job.”"

"It doesn’t need to be a long list [of medicines], it needs to be a list of things that are going to make a difference."

""There is no better return on investment in healthcare than vaccination, apart from clean water.”"

"“We are seeing new solutions being brought to previously unpreventable infectious diseases.”"

"“The question more and more for all of us in the industry is, ‘can we harness the promise of our understanding of biology, the promise of the capability of technology and with both new kinds of innovation and new policy, try and get ahead of disease at an earlier stage?’ Prevent it before it starts or intervene to keep people out of the hospital and keep people well for longer. Keep the cost of healthcare down but keep the outcomes improving in a way that's fair for more people.”"

""Everyone thinks the answer to every question these days is AI. It isn't. The answer to every question these days is all about the people. If you have a technically brilliant, aligned, energetic, committed, diverse, team, you can achieve absolutely anything,”"

"The situation is very fluid. We’ve been anticipating it for some time and we are confident that we will navigate through it. Our priority is always to make sure that we are securing supply of our medicines and vaccines to the people and patients who need it."

"One of the things that perhaps is underestimated for GSK is that when we went through the separation and the creation of Haleon, we used that to reset our global supply chain for meaningfully more resilience. That includes dual sourcing in all circumstances."

"We don’t manufacture there, so there’s no direct impact in terms of China-US relations. Perhaps you could even argue there may be opportunity as a British-based but global company for us."

"The last thing I’d say in terms of capital allocation is: no one should be in any doubt about our commitment to and recognition of the primacy of delivering returns to shareholders."

"I mean we have been through quite a radical transformation as a company over the last five years."

"We’re now a pure play biopharma and as you said absolutely after the major demerger of Haleon and absolutely resolutely focused on getting ahead of disease literally by preventing it and treating it and that is really taking advantage of this explosion in technologies, new vaccines technologies that we’ve seen, of course, mRNA"

"“They were looking for leadership. In a sense there was a vacuum there. A lot of people knew me as I had worked there before and I was known by local partners – everyone was very welcoming. But the staff were yearning for someone to come in.”"

"At a time when we have been put into special measures, had huge challenges and have made significant organisational change, we were able to attract a high calibre team which is really important in terms of sustainability and long-term improvement"

"The way staff engaged with it and agreed to the changes we made was a real testament to them. We have not really had any challenges"

"The real leadership challenge is how to deliver sustainable improvement year in and year out – someone said to me it’s more a marathon than a sprint.”"

"I’m a very pragmatic person,"

"Look at the high street names that aren’t here, but were here in 2019. The fact that we’ve come through it, the business has got momentum and the team is in place for a smooth transition. I’ve felt incredibly lucky."

"We’ve come through once in a generation events over the last five years"

"We’ve had the pandemic and we’ve had inflation at a level we haven’t seen since the 1970s. We’ve come through that as a partnership with all the upsides of the partnership – transparency, service, long-term focus – intact."

"I would say it’s a watershed moment. Some of the difficult decisions we took over the last year mean that we’re now generating more cash as a business"

"We’re back on track and much more fit for the future. This is a launch pad for the next phase of growth for the business and to be frank we’re in as solid a position as we could be given the five years we’ve had"

"The partnership almost sits apart from the rest of the business world,” she adds. “We’re almost more in the mode of the BBC or NHS as a national institution, because people feel that they’ve got a stake."

"The question is about how you fund your growth. The most straightforward is you generate your own cash through trading."

"I’m looking forward to what Waitrose is going to be doing over the next two to three years"

"The partnership model was never in question"

"I always ask, what’s the upside?"

"“I have had an amazing career over the past 40 years and worked with extraordinary people who share my passion for the food and drink industry,”"

""Now it is time for me to do something else while maintaining my interest in skills and young people. For me, the future is about continuing to be involved in the things I love while finding more time to enjoy my wonderful family and, in particular, my beautiful grandsons.”"

"For us, finding a solution is very, very important,"

"What is very important for us is regulatory standards. Absolutely key is that we have a convergence of that, that we avoid red tape,"

"“Industry must step up and help young people bridge the gap between education and employment,”"

"“We cannot leave this problem to the Government and schools. We need to work together to help young people – and to develop the next generation of skilled employees for the future.”"

"“As a country we walked away from apprenticeships and manufacturing generally. Now it’s very much back on the agenda, but we’ve got a lot of catching up to do to make sure we’re got the right skills.""

"“We have to bring young people in and really equip them, and move them through really fast. But we also have to up-skill – they are going to be the engineers for tomorrow.”"

"“Even out of the recession, we don’t believe that is going to come down massively,”"

"“It was hugely tough but we decided that my career would take the lead, so we put his business on ice and we went,” she says. “I have a great husband, that’s one of the magic ingredients.”"

"I’d produced BAFTA’s awards ceremonies for Scottish Television and was passionate about what they were trying to achieve. I just thought, “I have to go for that job” and for the second time in my life I was prepared to take a substantial pay cut to do a job that I really believed in"

"I don’t know where it came from, but for my second-year placement I decided I wasn’t going to go to one that the polytechnic had organised locally; I wanted to work in a PR department in a television company."

"I don’t know. I wrote to 15 television companies and I was very lucky that one of them said yes. I worked across the PR Department and the Publicity Department at Thames Television and couldn’t have been better supported, and I ended up staying for six months."

"I didn’t have many qualifications, but I had shorthand and typing, so I applied for secretarial roles and, again, I was very lucky. It was a time when pretty much every role I applied for"

"I was offered. The job I eventually went for was what I have always referred to as “second junior assistant from the left” at a theatrical agency. I was the 53rd person who was interviewed for the job and I got it."

"I have been at BAFTA for 22 years and the reason I am still here is that I feel we achieve something each and every day and my dreams for the organisation just keep coming true. There are so many triumphs – the journey from the BAFTA of 1998 to the BAFTA of today"

"the global recognition of our Film Awards and putting our work with new talent front and centre of what we do. I have a saying that ‘talent is everywhere but opportunity is not’, and I want to make sure that we are creating that opportunity."

"It is a privilege to join Building Digital UK at such a pivotal moment in its journey. The challenge of ensuring every corner of the UK benefits from fast, reliable digital infrastructure is one I am deeply passionate about"

"BDUK is a critical enabler of the Prime Minister’s Plan for Change, helping to grow the economy while ensuring communities are not left behind in the digital age. Working alongside the talented team at BDUK, we will continue to deliver on our mission of creating a more connected, inclusive, and digitally empowered nation."

"I’m excited to be joining ACL’s Board to help guide the company as it manages the pressures of coordination at a growing number of constrained airports while staying at the forefront of technical progress and customer service."

"Lesley Cowley appointed as Chair of the Board of Airport Coordination Ltd"

"Unseen is an antislavery organisation and a non-governmental organisation and our mission is to work towards a world without slavery."

"When we talk about support we are talking about direct services to survivors. So we run a women’s safe-house, a men’s safe-house and also a resettlement service. The safe-houses are 24/7 and once people move out of there we then help resettle them in to the community, so we work with them for a bit longer as they are living in and around the South West."

"And we’re due to open a children’s project later this year so again a safe-house for children. Then we say by influencing we realise that as an agency on our own we can’t tackle this issue so we need to collaborate with law enforcement, with government, local and national, with the EU, with local authorities, with other statutory organisations, to make sure that we come together to look at which bits agencies should be doing to stop the issue from occurring in the first place."

"So, I think we appreciate that our support side is a bit of a sticking plaster, in that the issue has already occurred for people and you need to then kind of try and put people back together again and get them back to resilience, empowerment and independence. We do a very small part of that on their journey but ideally we want to work to a situation where we don’t have to have safe-houses anymore."

"You can’t change yesterday but you can improve today and tomorrow."

"I can’t think of anything more shocking than the most beautifully skilled hands-on therapist becoming a manager."

"We should not underpay any well trained, qualified person."

"It is an icon of continuity; it has seen everything from the Norman Conquest to the Second World War."

"We tell the story of England — 6,000 years of history. We look after it and bring it to life."

"People will only preserve things if they understand them. We have to explain, therefore, why things matter. One of our purposes in this regard is to conserve things to help people understand their own history."

"I have always been interested in history and was taken to historic sites when I was a child. When I had young children, I went visiting with them, in turn. The diversity of visitors and the different ways they engage with historic places is something we have to be aware of and cater for."

"I would like English Heritage to be seen as a model institution for the challenge of bringing history to life"

"It was a very challenging time for that institution,’ she explains. ‘I learnt there how a charity was different from a government agency, which was invaluable for this job."

"we were meeting all our targets to make the organisation independent of state subsidy. The pandemic hit us hard and we received £12.6 million for capital projects from the Government emergency fund."

"Giving yourself permission to learn is incredibly important,”"

"There’s actually a demographic that has embraced learning from the start: millennials. Many millennial workers value professional development and learning opportunities, and they may grow frustrated with an employer if they don’t feel they are receiving adequate development opportunities"

"What is wrong with demanding that learning is a priority within your career"

"So if you’re looking to create a better work environment — and to attract the best people — be sure that your organization is one where “lifelong learning is celebrated and encouraged"

"I would have been a ‘lousy imperial princess’, because I would rather shovel sh-- than have to be very charming and dressed up on a daily basis."

"I can’t say a thing in Russian; I find English hard enough. I know four words in Russian: Da, Net, Spasibo, Dushka (Yes, No, Thank you, Sweetheart)."

"You either like people or you don’t."

"No, well, I don’t know, I have so many cousins in all directions, I don’t know what a cousin feels like."

"Felix is a 'downright civilian', dressed all in brown, walked to and fro about the room, searching in some bookcases with magazines and virtually doing nothing; an utterly unpleasant impression he makes - a man idling in such times.","

"The Queen has never sat there and said anything that makes her miserable, has she? She’s always got on with it."

"I was initially inspired by the young, rebellious rock elite of our era, as I’d never seen fine controversial jewelry designed for a niche market of the young and fearless, involving weapons and illegal substances. I then realized that I did not want to provoke use of weapons through my designs, as the designs were merely for comical attraction, the same way children play with toy guns; so I decided it would be an idea to donate to specific War Funds such as War Child with each item sold.”"

"“The starting point in my design process has always been a rough sketch of my imagination, I’ll then spend a lot of time with the dimensions of the product and precisely draw each design in my portfolio with the exact measurements. I’ll then send my designs to my manufacturer and he’ll send me back a preventive and the CAD files on the computer to see if I would like to go ahead with it before it is produced.”"

"I realized that most of my collection is targeted at a niche market, which makes it very difficult to pitch the brand to the right people and places, especially deciding which countries to distribute the products to.”"

"Be good at what you do and be kind. Almost every role I have had came through recommendation"

"Say yes to opportunities. Take the chance to get involved in additional projects that arise - don't see this as work you are not getting paid for but a new chance to learn and grow."

"Find work you love. If it doesn't feel like work it will bring you pleasure and you will be able to give what you need to succeed. If you don't love it you may be in the wrong company or sector."

"Be ballsy but always be fair, consistent and kind. I have no idea why women feel they need to act tough to succeed."

"I've inherited a business in really good shape, but we need to change"

"We are seeing input prices rising substantially, no doubt... but we don't yet know how much will be passed on."

"It's a pretty volatile environment."

"We do regular customer insight and we are seeing slightly more uncertainty in the way people are thinking about their personal finances."

"Do I believe in shops? Absolutely"

"Shops are not just a route to sell things, they are an invitation for customers to experience our brand, and what we stand for."

"When I'm talking about reinventing the department store, I'm not talking about physical space, I'm talking about the holistic provision of services that a department store can provide."

"At those times the model came under strain, John Lewis got closer to the customer. In the 1950s and 60s as the supermarkets arrived on the scene, John Lewis set out to identify human needs and fulfil them. For instance, we did a daily food delivery service to caravans and holiday homes."

"It has something very special about it and so I am very mindful during my time that I stay true to the principles of this brand and what it stands for - in other words, a better way of doing business. This is precisely why I wanted this job"

"I began work on the garden over 23 years ago and it’s been a fulltime job ever since,” the duchess tells me."

"My favourite book is Elements of Murder by John Emsley, a professor of criminology. I was delighted when I found out he was coming to the Alnwick Garden to give a lecture."

"My dream bouquet would have to consist of Jude the Obscure roses and David Austin roses – they have a wonderful apricot smell"

"What word best describes Alnwick Garden? Extraordinary, because there is nothing ordinary about it. It is unlike anything else you’ll see in the world"

"We had many funny evenings with her and him, he would come up for the carriage driving at Alnwick and he was always just game for anything and we had many laughs"

"I remember very well and particularly with hindsight of the prince's huge accomplishments and yet seeing how great he was with everyone he met and how interested he was in people, and also the occasional, funny off-the-cuff remarks, which will remain with me for a long time."

"I was working in PR and marketing for a small chain of hotels in the North West producing brochures"

"We’d just done a gardening weekend. It went very well and we thought we needed to do more specialist themed weekends, because at that time in the 1980s, it wasn’t really a thing."

"I was driving to work one morning and I heard about a shooting at The Plaza in New York. I thought about how awful it would be if someone was shot in our hotel."

"Then I thought how interesting it would be for the people staying there. A bit scary, but they wouldn’t be able to leave – they would have to give evidence."

"But I discussed it with the chairman of the firm and told him I thought we would get a lot of publicity, and he said yes."

"I thought it was important for the guests to have emotional attachments to characters,” she says. “I didn’t want them to just watch a show."

"Now, there’s so many interactive things like escape rooms – I was doing interactive 38 years before it became commonplace, so I think I was always an innovator."

"I had so much interest from around the world, which proves that the murder mystery weekend idea was new. No-one else had heard of them."

"If you do things well, do them better. Be daring, be first, be different, be just."

"Business itself is now the most powerful force for change in the world today, richer and faster by far than most governments."

"In a way, campaigning with The Hepatitis C Trust is business as usual. I've always felt that activism is my rent for living on this planet."

"I myself never even dreamed of being a business woman … I took over because I had to."