Amanda Berry (film executive)

"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."