"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."

"Teachers and parents don’t see engineers in society. Most people who become engineers already have a family member in the industry"

"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."

"Engineering is harder to get into as a girl. Schools will generally funnel girls towards law or medicine"

"It is important to remember that still only 16% of the engineering workforce are women but in society, women make up 51% of the population"

"The general public still doesn’t see engineers in the way it does doctors or lawyers. You see doctors and lawyers portrayed on television and in fiction, but engineering only has visibility in documentary formats, so Inwed has an important role to promote the profession.”"

"I’ve always believed that actions speak louder than words. My focus has always been on building the business and ensuring its success, rather than seeking the spotlight. I’m proud of what we’ve achieved at Bet365, but I prefer to let the company’s performance and reputation do the talking."

"My journey began with a strong determination to make something of myself in the business world. I grew up in a family that was involved in the betting industry, which gave me early exposure to the business. I started by working in the family’s betting shops and eventually took over the chain. However, I knew that the future of the industry was online, so I decided to take a risk and develop an online betting platform."

"The success of Bet365 can be attributed to a few key factors. First and foremost, we focused on creating a user-friendly platform that made online betting accessible to a wide audience. We invested heavily in technology and innovation, ensuring that our site was always ahead of the curve. Customer experience was also a top priority—we listened to what our customers wanted and continually improved our offerings based on their feedback. Additionally, our commitment to responsible gambling and ethical practices helped build trust with our customers, which is crucial in this industry."

"from a traditional brick-and-mortar business to an online platform, which required a significant shift in mindset and resources. There were also regulatory challenges, especially as we expanded into new markets. However, I’ve always believed that challenges are opportunities in disguise. By staying focused, adapting to changes, and surrounding myself with a talented team, we were able to navigate these obstacles and grow the business."

"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."

"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"

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Ensure you have digital talent in your organisation."

"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."

"Being green is good for the bottom line in the long run, but it requires investments, and those have to be shared.”"

"“Perfection is not possible; it’s an elusive goal,” said Hunt. But progress is an achievable one.”"

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

"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."

"I believe that resilience, determination, and a strong work ethic are essential for success. You need to be willing to take calculated risks and make tough decisions. Leadership is also about vision—being able to see where the market is going and positioning your business accordingly. Lastly, integrity is crucial. No matter how successful you are, it’s important to conduct business in a way that is ethical and fair."

"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"

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

"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"

"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."

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

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

"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"

"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?"

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

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

"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"

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

"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."

"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."