"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."

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

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

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

"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."

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

"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 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."

"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."

"We moved towards having a more diverse board and that makes a difference. In somewhere like the House of Lords, women are well represented. And I think that is important. But I have had four children so I understand the pressures. But luckily I have a very good husband."

"In business, people value you for getting things done, rather than the power of written material and analysis. So, you have to get much better at explaining yourself orally, be much briefer, have plans and strategy and learn to deliver on time."

"“One difficulty of negotiating trade agreements if we were in the customs union but not in the trade committee which defines the EU objectives, is that we would essentially be a rule taker. That would be a problem because there are protectionist views in the EU which are not in the UK interest."

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

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

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

"I don’t do this for money."

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

"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."

""The pace of change has been so fast that we need to be constantly on our toes.”"

"Just Do It — I know it sounds cliché, but I believe there is power in acting, and not overthinking things."

"“A year in a startup is about seven years in corporate life.” As a founder, especially in your first few years of growing the business, you go through this torrent of emotional and psychological experiences within a compact period, and it’s not something you’re aware of until you’re deeply ingrained in building the business.""

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

"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"

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

"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"

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"“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 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 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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Plumbing is lazy."

"The thing about plumbing is that it’s all about having control."

"I feel I am an ordinary person and if ordinary people can get recognised for the work they do, it is fantastic."

"Working for yourself is flexible, you work your own hours, it's a great career and it is a very good earner."

"There’s a persistent belief that women shouldn’t get paid a decent wage for their work and expertise, especially when their client group is other women. We dispute this. We do not believe that women are “charity cases.” We all deserve to invest in our own futures and to receive a decent income."

"I wonder why I do this, it isn’t easy; women in the skilled trades in construction represent less than one percent of all trades workers and there is massive opposition (and inertia) within the industry itself. There is no funding support and yet there is a popular belief that we must be a charity in receipt of funding (and therefore, a wage) if we’re providing this service."

"Fixing things, being a hero, and my passion for water all took me towards plumbing."

"I left teaching because the changes in the education system meant I was putting more energy into admin than into teaching children."

"We are women, but a lot of work still needs to be done to raise awareness that women plumbers exist, and to end the isolation female plumbers feel in their locations often not knowing how many of us there actually are."