"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"In terms of what I want to do, Africa, Africa, Africa. We are a continent that’s reliant on rain for our crops: we are already a poor continent so we cannot put in a lot of irrigation."

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

"We need to coach women not to be emotional but calm and rational. I just said calmly, ‘I know I am not earning as much as XX. Can you help me sort it out?’ And it was addressed very quickly.”"

"Targeting and understanding what they want is what counts. Every month I go shopping with our customers, we’ll go together to different stores. I’ll watch as they feel fabrics, appreciate design… This customer listening is crucial.”"

"Unfortunately there are stereotypes. If, as women, we keep it really fact-based and calm, it will lead to people reacting to us positively… You want to encourage somebody to want to be with you and on your side. Not to be accusatorial.”"

"The crops that we are eating [today] are highly genetically modified. Through conventional breeding, thousands of gene changes happened without us knowing that we were doing GM all along."

"I want to cater to the subsistence farmer, the person who wants to make enough food to live"

"Farmers are becoming more and more dispirited, and droughts are killing them."

"Without trying to be rude, they are very ignorant about the subject. Genetic modification of plants is probably the safest kind of GM, yet it is the most vilified one."

"We should make agriculture part of the solution to our issues… the climate change problem is so huge everything should be on the table"

"No, definitely not. It can be a solution for only a small amount of crops that are going to help with food security. People are thinking about aeroponics, hydroponics, eating insects, eating all sorts of other foods. Resurrection crops is one solution of many – but I think it is a very important one."

"It is also the continent where there is the greatest predicted food shortage compared to the population growth. The United Nations has projected the African population to double to 2.4 billion by 2050, while global warming is likely to worsen droughts and reduce crop yields. But apart from all of that, it is my passion to do this for Africa."

"I am obsessive about customer research, personalisation and in-store consultations to get customers to try something new. Oh, and not wasting time on 150-slide presentations. It’s about distillation.”"

"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."

"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 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’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. 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."

"When fossils are found, people try to identify and understand the fossil itself. But my research goes beyond that. I want to try and understand something about the animal when it was living — how long did it take to grow, what kind of factors affected its growth, did it have any disease, was it male or female."

"My second book is called . This book is about is the history of life on earth from a perspective of the African continent. It’s like a big picture story. The book was aimed at the high school level but can also be enjoyed equally by adults.One of my very big interests is to promote science through different platforms."

"Kids have so much information about the prehistoric world, it is unreal. They know the geological time, they know about predators and prey and the names of so many dinosaurs."

"South Africa certainly has unique issues. As you know, our country has the legacy of the apartheid. So for me, as an Indian woman, growing up in South Africa meant that there were certain restrictions — which universities I could attend, what I could do. If you look at the numbers of black women in science in South Africa"

"I often work with the Association for South African Women in Science and Engineering and I’m very involved in trying to promote and encourage young people to come into science"

"I’m a paleontologist, and a biologist. The particular area that I work in is called paleobiology. I use my understanding of bone structures of modern animals to make extrapolations to the fossil record."

"I’m a very pragmatic person,"

"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"

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

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

"Think about the areas that interest you, move around and try them out. It’s so fast-paced that I’d say just throw yourself into it."

"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 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 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."

"When I wanted to step up into my first director role. I started to look around when I was at Matalan, after Northern Foods, and that was the first time I felt I was coming up against a ceiling. It’s hard to get that first break because there’s a pool of people around that have already done it. When you’ve not held that role, but you’ve got all the experience and skills, it’s hard to be able to convince people that you’re capable of it if you don’t have the title."

"The partnership model was never in question"

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

"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."

"“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.”"

"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."

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

""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,”"

"“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.”"