00:00:00
could you do me a quick favor if you're listening to this please hit the follow or subscribe button it helps more than you know and we invite subscribers in
00:00:05
every month to watch the show in person i remember my first away game and i turned up and i saw hi could you tell me
00:00:11
where the boardroom is and he said dear you don't understand the director's wives go in the ladies room and i said
00:00:17
no i don't think it's you understands i am the managing director baroness brady she's one of britain's
00:00:23
most successful business women i'm the kind of person that never hears the word no i hear find another way to get what
00:00:29
you want leadership is about vision and your art as a leader is to persuade
00:00:34
people to believe in your vision i remember reading the story about your son telling you on holiday and saying i
00:00:39
wish your blackberry would blow up working mother is the best title for me sometimes you don't get it right you can
00:00:45
only do the best you can do ambition is that spark it's that fire
00:00:51
inside of yourself that won't let you settle for anything other than what you
00:00:56
think you deserve and what you want what you would say to those young women that are starting out in their career
00:01:02
i would say so without further ado i'm stephen bartlett and this is the
00:01:08
diary of a ceo i hope nobody's listening but if you are then please keep this to yourself
00:01:14
[Music]
00:01:21
karen hello stephen um i i've spent the last couple of days listening to your
00:01:26
interviews and reading a lot of sort of interviews you've done in newspapers and things like that and as i got further and further and further further into
00:01:32
your story and further into your childhood there was this question which i wasn't able to answer despite all that i'd read and it's you clearly from a
00:01:39
very young age had this real deep desire to have freedom which resulted in this independence and also
00:01:45
resulted in this wonderful young person who had this ability to like stand up for themselves but where did this deep
00:01:51
desire to be free from the control of others where does it come from i don't know i mean my mother always
00:01:58
tells a story that um when i was four that um my grandfather was looking after me at
00:02:04
home and my parents had this drinks cabinet and it was sort of opened down
00:02:09
and it had all these like bottles of beautiful bottles and little glasses and things and she tells this story and i don't
00:02:16
remember it at all but i got a chair and i climbed up and i opened the drinks cabinet
00:02:22
and they had these little sherry glasses and i poured all little bits of liquid from it and i started to drink it and my
00:02:28
grandfather said um don't do that you'll be sick and i said you leave me alone i'll do what i want i
00:02:34
won't be sick and then of course drank a half of the drinks cabinet
00:02:40
um and wasn't sick and my mum said you were always defiant
00:02:47
you always had your own mind wanted to do your own thing uh thought you knew best cut my own hair
00:02:54
when i was six we had a um a school photo the next day and i decided the only person who could
00:03:00
cut my hair was myself and you should see the picture my fringe sort of starts here and sort of goes like that and it's
00:03:05
got all lumps cut out of it i guess i kind of thought if i didn't stand up for myself no one would and i was very happy
00:03:11
to stand up for myself and you know in life as you go through life you one of the things you realize is
00:03:17
that if sometimes you've got to find your backbone and you've got to use it and simply putting one foot in front of
00:03:24
the other and keep going is one of the philosophies i've had in my life but no always define always
00:03:30
stood up for myself never took anything lying down yeah i don't know
00:03:35
defiant feels like the perfect word um and i was trying to figure out where it came from because usually when i sit
00:03:42
with my guests they can like even if it's incorrect they can look back in hindsight and pinpoint a moment some kind of trauma or pain or negative
00:03:48
experience which shaped them to be a bit of an anomaly in some way so i was like where did this defiance come from and i couldn't quite
00:03:55
figure it out i don't know i i have no idea it's not part of any trauma that
00:04:00
happened to me i just i guess i always felt that i had something to say and even at
00:04:08
a young age i wanted to say it and i didn't care who heard it or how you know i just felt
00:04:15
i wanted to stand up for myself i have no idea i've never really thought about it i know it's definitely a part of my
00:04:22
personality trait that this defiance this i'm gonna prove people wrong i'm going to do what i want
00:04:28
to do how i want to do it but i never really thought about where it came from what's this story about your first day
00:04:34
of school and your mum being concerned that you might be shy and finding out that you shot some kid off the chair
00:04:40
well there's another story i mean i don't remember any of these stories but my mom said the first day of school she was very worried if i would be shy or
00:04:46
would i want to go home or whatever and she went to pick me up from school and she said to the teacher how was karen she
00:04:54
said oh your daughter's carrich should always be shy she said karen shy she said she she went up to a boy in a chair
00:05:00
and she went that's my seat get off so but i don't remember it i don't remember any of these things but all
00:05:06
these little stories they always have one thing in common i have this sort of level of defiance and this you know
00:05:12
determination to to stand up for myself one of my suspicions when i was trying to piece together this this little bit
00:05:19
of defiance puzzle was um reading about your dad and how much of a sort of hard-working
00:05:24
autonomous man he was and how hard you said he worked i was wondering if they had given you a bit of
00:05:30
a kind of a void of independence when you were growing up that led you to create this kind of independence in yourself was were they
00:05:36
like present and were they on you no definitely not on me in that way they weren't you know tiger parents pushing
00:05:43
you to the front although my grandmother used to always say be first because it's the best place to be she used to always say that to me so my dad left school at
00:05:50
14 didn't have much of an education and worked really hard to get where he wanted and i guess the lesson from him
00:05:57
was you know nothing compensates for hard work and if you don't try you know if you don't try something you'll never
00:06:03
know how good you are at something so i think maybe that sheer resilience came from
00:06:09
his model of working hard doing your best trying
00:06:14
everything pushing yourself forward and would he give you advice would he impart knowledge onto you or
00:06:20
was it you learning by his example of watching him work i think almost definitely the the the second one
00:06:26
i i don't remember him ever sitting me down and saying do this and you know your life will be better or more
00:06:33
enriched i think it was just learning from examples from seeing the hard work and you know we
00:06:39
went from edmonton to a little bit further up to another little place in edmonton to a bit further up and our
00:06:46
lives sort of got slightly better and my dad's desire was to give my brother and
00:06:51
i a really good education because he hadn't had one so he really wanted us to have a great education because he felt that
00:06:58
was a big part of what was missing in his life and i guess he maybe he thought if you have a great education you don't
00:07:04
have to work so hard you don't have to start so much at the bottom i think that was a real driver for him
00:07:09
and your mother my mother was a housewife so she had no ambitions for work very
00:07:15
smart woman very nurturing in everything that she did my dad was away working a
00:07:21
lot so she was a lot on her own uh but equally fun loving and stylish
00:07:26
and you know spoke her mind too and you at this age didn't
00:07:32
have big ambitions for what you wanted to do in the future in terms of specific ambitions about career options there's a
00:07:38
quote which i read where you said i wasn't gifted in anything i wasn't academic i wasn't the best at anything in fact i was a very average child who
00:07:44
really didn't know what she wanted to do or where she was going to go the greatest gift that my parents gave me
00:07:49
was self-esteem yeah i think you're very lucky if you know
00:07:55
what you want to do if you have a vocation or a calling at a young age i think that is a remarkable
00:08:01
thing that you should you should channel i didn't know what i was good at i didn't feel i was
00:08:07
particularly good at anything it wasn't as though i had a particular
00:08:12
panache for you know anything and uh
00:08:17
i wasn't particularly ambitious but i know i wanted to do something with my life but i didn't know what and i think
00:08:24
ambition is something that sort of creeps up on you slowly when you realize you're good at something and you think
00:08:29
oh actually i'm quite good at this and then you think actually i might be the best person in this room at this or i
00:08:36
might be the best person i know at this and that inspires you to to keep going but i left school at 18 i
00:08:44
had no levels in a levels as they were in those days but i had no qualifications but what i had worked has something
00:08:49
really important and that is i'd worked out my core values
00:08:54
so at 18 i had worked out that i was ambitious i was determined and i had integrity
00:09:03
and core values are the things that sort of make you who you are they are the things that lead you to make the
00:09:09
decisions you make for yourself and the way you make decisions and 18 i knew those things about myself and at 52 i
00:09:15
think they're still my core values and armed with those things i set out to get a job and this one
00:09:23
thing i wanted for my life was independence i wanted to say what i wanted to do and how i want to do it and
00:09:29
when i wanted to do it and that's predominantly because i'd been at boarding school for a very early age
00:09:34
going back to my father wanted to give me the best education he thought boarding school education was probably the best and at boarding school you get
00:09:41
up when you're told you eat what you're told you wear what you told you do what you're told and i've had enough and i
00:09:46
knew that independence only really came when you had your own money and the problem is 18 i didn't know how you made
00:09:51
money but i kind of worked out almost everyone works for someone even before
00:09:57
they work for themselves so i went out and i got a job an a team with no qualifications other than no levels and
00:10:02
a levels but armed with my core values that i really wasn't afraid to work hard and i was really ambitious and i would
00:10:08
try anything and i would do anything but with integrity i went out and i got a job and i started my career
00:10:15
something i just i was trying to piece please um put two kind of dots together there boarding school a very restrictive place
00:10:22
the antithesis of like freedom your childhood sounded like you had quite a lot of sort of relative freedom
00:10:28
is there is is it possible that you went from a childhood pre-boarding school where you had a bit more freedom and then because boarding school was such a
00:10:35
big change you had a bit of an allergic reaction to the someone taking your freedom or do you my
00:10:41
friends who are still my friends from when we were at school in those days we remember only one thing about that whole
00:10:47
time the boredom of simply being there and having mass sort of three times a day and the second thing was we were
00:10:54
hungry all the time every day was a fast day so you'd have you know the holy saint of such and such day and it was a
00:11:01
fast day and we remember those those two things and the sort of repressive attitude of wearing the same thing doing
00:11:07
the same thing doing what you're told not being able to explore things you're interested in
00:11:14
and none of us could wait to none of us could wait to leave but it did teach me
00:11:21
resilience the ability to do the things that need to be done when they need to be done whether you
00:11:27
like it or not and that's because every day was the same and there's a great
00:11:34
lesson i think in life in being able to force yourself to do things you don't want to do because you have to
00:11:40
and that taught me a great deal of patience and resilience and determination
00:11:47
which is funny because much of your your life has been very much the opposite doing making sure you don't
00:11:52
have to do things you don't want to do and being like restricted by the rules of others but there is a sense in every
00:11:59
job you do whether you're a pop star you've got to sing the same songs every night
00:12:04
you know whether you're working in an office or working for someone else or reporting to shelters there's an element
00:12:09
of our lives that has to be done and you get that discipline from being
00:12:15
able to do it and power through it and approaching it in the way it needs to be approached which is a real discipline as
00:12:23
opposed to saying i don't want to do it and i'm not going to do it there's a difference you said earlier about how you started
00:12:29
at one point to notice that the advantages or the skills you had over your peers at a maybe a young age around
00:12:35
maybe 18 when you start to join the working world and before what when you looked at say 18 19 year
00:12:40
old karen what were those skills that you started to notice well i'm better than i seem to be better than everyone else
00:12:46
at this thing or you know stronger or whatever i went into sales um which is the sort of place where most people go
00:12:52
when they don't really have anything else they can do because
00:12:57
you you're either good at it or you're not um but you don't need any particular skills other than being able to have
00:13:03
resilience of picking up the phone keep trying not taking the knock backs going forward and i realized i was good at it
00:13:11
and i would never take no for an answer i would always be determined i would
00:13:16
continue to pick up the phone i had a sort of dogged attitude to not letting
00:13:22
the knocks get me down you know when people slam the phone on you or they don't want to speak that ability to
00:13:27
learn the language it wasn't do you want any it was how many do you want you know was that it was that sort of subtle
00:13:34
change of being able to be personable i think i worked out an early age that people do business with people
00:13:41
and it doesn't matter how much brain you have if you don't have a personality you
00:13:46
can't put that brain into a good uh you know in in into a good place so having a
00:13:51
personality and having a brain is a is a good combination i worked in tele sales as well for four years
00:13:57
from 16 to 20 or whatever it was and it was genuinely the most formative experience
00:14:02
of my life i agree also because i don't have the qualifications so it's there yeah yeah and it's a good place to start
00:14:08
i don't know about you but i'm not particularly creative i couldn't have done anything i mean i couldn't have done anything in the arts world or
00:14:14
anything like that but actually picking up the phone having that resilience being prepared to take the knock backs
00:14:20
keep pushing forward never taking no for an answer those are things i learned from a very young young age so you did
00:14:26
sales at sanchez no i did uh menial office work at sachitsarchi and i left
00:14:32
saatchi to go into sales at 19 and i worked for london broadcasting company where we sold advertising space and
00:14:38
that's where you met david sullivan yes that's right yeah he was one of my very first clients and he took radio
00:14:45
advertising and within six months of me meeting him and selling him radio advertising he was spending
00:14:51
two million pounds a year on radio which was the highest spender on commercial radio in the
00:14:57
country and i was on a really high commission well done it was a good time so you meet david
00:15:03
sullivan and he's quite well he's not spending on radio at the time when you met him and he's kind of against it i hear yeah he didn't think
00:15:10
it particularly worked and i sold him the idea that he would take the advertising package and if sales didn't
00:15:16
go up he didn't have to pay for it and he said yeah sounds okay to me and i sort of thought well if he doesn't pay
00:15:22
for i'm going to be in trouble but i thought i'd worry about that when that happens i was just pleased to have made
00:15:28
the sale and he took the advertising the advertising did work and he kept spending and spending and spending if we
00:15:34
zoom in on that that sale that deal you closed with david sullivan i know a lot of people couldn't have closed
00:15:40
that deal and i know that was a pivotal moment in your early career but i know a lot of people couldn't have closed that
00:15:45
deal so as you look back in hindsight what was it about karen that helped you to close that deal well one i went to
00:15:51
see him so i turned up at his offices and i waited until he saw me and i waited a long time quite a few hours
00:15:58
until he felt i think sorry for me and i wasn't going anywhere and he let me do the pitch the presentation which i did
00:16:04
equally i always had this um feeling that you know what's the worst that can
00:16:10
happen and the worst that could happen is he didn't take the package and he slung me out but the best that could happen is he saw me and he took the
00:16:16
package so i always looked on the bright side so i turned up i did the deal i presented well i had all the facts and
00:16:22
figures i knew what i was talking about and i guess he thought it took a chance i think the package was i can't remember
00:16:29
it wasn't a lot of money and it wasn't a multi-million pound deal that someone had to really think about it i pitched
00:16:35
it just that it would be an impulse it could be someone that it was enough money to have a gamble not too much not
00:16:42
too little just in that spot and i persuaded him i had this art of
00:16:47
persuasion talked about what it could do for him how it would work and he and he took it
00:16:52
and that was the beginning of my one of my very own clients
00:16:58
that stayed with me for many years and still today we're still working together at west ham some 30 years later
00:17:04
that is pretty um incredible did he know you were coming that day to pitch he booked in a meeting to see you i
00:17:10
can't remember i think i'd booked in a meeting whether he knew about that i don't know
00:17:16
i can't remember because that did end up being quite an early pivotal moment for you it's quite a testament to the fact
00:17:21
that again people do buy from people and that you were very a very persuasive person but also there's a sub lesson in
00:17:26
there which i've heard you talk about before which is when you're young and you don't have a ton to lose because young people fall into this trap of
00:17:32
thinking that no is some kind of like death sentence or it's fatal yeah but as you say you
00:17:37
know when you've got nothing else to lose yeah i had nothing to lose the worst thing that could happen is he didn't buy it
00:17:43
and i had to sell it to someone i was very independent i wasn't relying on my parents for money i was relying on
00:17:49
myself i had no safety net no nest egg i had no you know no i had to pay my rent
00:17:56
i had to pay my bills i had to pay my travel i had to pay for my food and i had to make that sale for me it had to
00:18:01
happen it wasn't a case of well we'll we'll see but i'm the kind of person that never hears
00:18:08
the word no when someone says no to me i don't hear no i hear find another way to
00:18:13
get what you want and that's what i always do i always i think no it is is only really pivotal if it ultimately
00:18:20
stops you doing what you want to do if you hear no and you can find another way of getting
00:18:26
what you want that's that's just as good as hearing a yes am i right in thinking that you're someone that like really believes in a philosophy versus like
00:18:34
current skills because you're when you talk you talk in terms of like your own philosophy to life and a lot of people
00:18:40
when they speak they speak in terms of i don't know skills or hacks or tricks whatever but yours seems to be much
00:18:45
deeper than that even saying that they're defaulting to optimism all the time and uh
00:18:50
i don't know i've never really i've never really thought about it i think you you know you you you need
00:18:56
the ability to work hard you need the ability to push yourself forward you need the ability to have a backbone you
00:19:02
need the ability to um have a dogged sort of determination and if you have a
00:19:08
great idea so much the better so much the better people say to me you know what what is an entrepreneur well an
00:19:14
entrepreneur is someone that just spots a gap in the market for a service or a product that that
00:19:21
is either not available or available but they can make it better and they're the kind of
00:19:26
people that well-meaning people say oh don't do that that's very risky but they are prepared to back themselves and put
00:19:33
all those doubters to one side and just plow through it and that that's sort of been what i've done for 30 years
00:19:41
as you said that relationship with david has sustained still today and yeah he actually went on to hire you so what
00:19:47
have you learned about the importance of like relationship building in business and i think that uh part and parcel of
00:19:53
running a great business is to have a really good culture a really good culture comes from trust and being
00:19:59
candid and being honest and supporting one another and it's
00:20:04
interesting that david sullivan is i'm is still with me in west ham so is david gold two
00:20:11
people who i started with from a very young age um and we're still all working together
00:20:16
and we still have lots to talk about lots of ideas and we still bounce off each other and we trust each other and i
00:20:21
think that's a really fundamental part of growing a great business
00:20:27
being candid you said that talk to me about how candid you are in business very i think it's important i have a
00:20:34
great candid atmosphere at west ham i want people to say what they don't think is
00:20:41
right what they think could be better what needs to be changed i think if you have too many like-minded people running
00:20:47
the same organization you're so busy passing each other off on the back as you sort of follow each other off the
00:20:53
edge of the cliff you need people to say hang on a minute why is this important how does this affect us what does this
00:20:59
you know what does this mean we stand for what are our values what's our purpose you need people to be honest and
00:21:04
candid and i think candid is good and how do i go about creating a candid culture in my company say if i've you
00:21:10
know i'm running a business and i want people to be more candid what what what do i do and don't do to make sure that
00:21:16
we arrive at that place well the most important thing the most important thing that people want from you when you're
00:21:21
running your organization is your time they want time with you they want you to listen to them they want to
00:21:29
be in your inner circle they want to be part of part of it that's what people want um
00:21:36
it's you know it's become less i think as times have gone on about money and
00:21:42
status and more about being in the know being in that in that room when decisions are made and
00:21:49
making people feel that they can be in the room that they're part of the discussion and that you'll listen to
00:21:55
them and that they can say what they want without worrying about you know what's going to
00:22:01
happen to me next i think that's that's really important so say someone's in the board room with you and they they say
00:22:07
something which is maybe even negative towards a decision you've made i guess you've got to be cautious of your
00:22:12
reaction to make sure that they don't in the future shy away from because you're a very powerful woman you know it would
00:22:18
be quite intimidating to tell you the truth i don't think i think if you spoke to my staff they
00:22:24
or the people that i work with they would all say that the one thing karen is great at is listening and understanding
00:22:32
and i think the minute you think as a leader of organization you know everything is
00:22:37
the minute you don't know anything at all you have to believe in lifelong learning you have to believe that the
00:22:43
people around you are valuable enough to have a different opinion to yours that is just as important and the minute you
00:22:51
think they they don't have an opinion that's important as yours you either don't have the right team or you don't
00:22:57
have the right team with the right skills i like to employ people better than me because it sort of proves i'm better
00:23:04
than them if that makes sense and then when you have people with great knowledge and great skills why
00:23:10
wouldn't you listen to them when they tell you something i mean of course you have debates i want to do everything
00:23:15
quickly i want to do everything with strength and power and purpose and
00:23:21
others are like oh hang on a minute let's not go at that pace let's try and do this let's do something and sometimes
00:23:29
you follow your gut instinct because it's important and people say to me what
00:23:34
is a gut instinct a gut instinct i think it's made up of all the experiences
00:23:40
you've had through your career and you've sort of when you're in face with
00:23:45
the problem you've been in that movie before you've had that problem before different problem in a different moment
00:23:53
about a different thing but very similar and you know the outcome so your gut instinct goes hang a minute
00:24:00
i've somehow i've been here before and i know how this plays out and i find if i
00:24:05
follow my gut instinct i tend to go make the right decisions and if i ignore it i tend to go bad but
00:24:11
sometimes you need someone to go hang on a minute take a step back have another look at this have a think about this
00:24:18
and it's a very uh it's a very lonely place if you don't have people around you that
00:24:24
want the same things as you that want to help you achieve and build the things that you you want to do and
00:24:32
being able to listen to people and encourage people to have their thoughts and ideas is i think really really
00:24:39
important so how much of an organization that you you run and what parts of it are a democracy because i'm trying to see that
00:24:45
balance between you being assertive and making the call but also
00:24:51
operating in some respects like a bit of a democracy where you're hearing everyone's opinions is there like a balancing
00:24:56
act yeah i mean look if you think about leadership and you should never confuse leadership
00:25:02
with management management is about setting out a series of goals and managing people to deliver them very
00:25:08
important but that's not leadership leadership is about vision and sometimes it's only a vision you can
00:25:15
see and your art as a leader is to persuade people
00:25:20
to believe in your vision and help you deliver it so we have
00:25:26
large groups of people that help deliver visions so our next vision for west ham for
00:25:32
example is to go from a sixty thousand capacity to a sixty two and a half thousand capacity and we're in the
00:25:38
process we've got planning permission for it in the process of going through that transition
00:25:44
um how do we sell those extra tickets who do we sell them to do we put the price up where do we allocate them how do
00:25:51
people get in should there be more bars these are huge decisions one person cannot make those decisions
00:25:58
and everybody who has a stake in that decision should have a say
00:26:04
and that's everyone from the commercial department right through to you know the person who runs the
00:26:10
disabled supporters group everyone needs to make that decision together and that's how you breed great culture
00:26:18
listening to people understanding the problems finding the solutions together having some fun while you do it so it's
00:26:25
not all you know over charts and in in a very um
00:26:30
rigid way it is much more in a conversational way so for example i took a load of my team to seville when we
00:26:38
played in europa and we went together we had a great time together we used the
00:26:44
downtime to talk about things important to us and it's part and parcel of creating a
00:26:50
place where people feel really proud to work they feel really proud of what they do
00:26:55
and they feel really well respected and they have a lot of fun have a lot of fun yeah yeah
00:27:01
i just realized i'm playing at your stadium oh is it in the um the soccer age yes
00:27:07
yes hopefully that will uh sell it out for you but um no i just realized as you
00:27:14
were talking then yeah you're playing at the unbelievable beautiful stadium you're a big part of getting uh winning
00:27:19
the bid to kind of move over there on the topic i'm really excited by the way what a tremendous honor that is to get
00:27:24
to play at your stadium but um on the topic of football then you so david sullivan ends up hiring you from lbc yes
00:27:32
and you join his corporation yes and then i hear it like 22 23 years old you
00:27:37
see an advert in the financial times to for birmingham city which is in financial hardship yes
00:27:43
and you've been in administration and you persuaded david to buy yes birmingham's
00:27:50
what well he to be fair to him he was looking at buying either a race course or a
00:27:57
football club he was interested in doing something in that area
00:28:03
and birmingham had gone into administration there was a little ad that said football club are saying i thought it was interesting and i got the details and i
00:28:08
went to him i said this is football club for sale you buy it and i'll run it what and he was like whoa football very male
00:28:14
dominated you'll have to be twice as good as the men to be so as even only half as good and i said well luckily that's not difficult
00:28:21
and he said okay we'll give it a go and and we did and it was bought really quickly within three days that was like
00:28:27
a friday and on the tuesday we owned the club and that was it we uh we went in there we we made so many
00:28:33
mistakes but we had a great time it was such a fantastic experience you know to
00:28:38
be given the challenge and chance of a lifetime to run a great business and change it take it out of administration
00:28:45
i mean it made a trading profit for the first time in its history and after my first year and it was a real learning
00:28:51
curve but it was great fun i love how you glossed over the fact so
00:28:56
graciously that at 23 you took over the management of a football club after seeing an advert in the financial times
00:29:02
and persuading david dubai you took over the management of a football club at 23 yes i was desperate to look at least 250
00:29:15
so did you just have the the courage and the conviction and the confidence to
00:29:21
take on that role because football is a complete like i don't even think no i definitely would not have the the
00:29:26
confidence to run a football club and i i've loved football i've followed it my whole life i've ran big businesses
00:29:32
but a football club is a whole different beast it is like it is different and it's different because
00:29:38
it doesn't make anything it doesn't manufacture anything it doesn't produce anything other than more footballers all
00:29:44
its assets are people so being able to manage people
00:29:50
and to manage the diversity of those and it comes back to that culture by having
00:29:56
an environment where everyone has to do everything within their skill set to make the business a success and know
00:30:01
that that is valued and respected and there is no uh
00:30:08
ceiling on your ambition whether it's 18 year old that wants to go into the first team or the 18 year old who works in the
00:30:14
ticket office that one day wants to run it it's up to you where you go and i wanted to create a sort of a a business
00:30:21
that i wanted to work in when i was 18 where you you was nothing holding you back there
00:30:27
was no politics there was no age there's no discrimination whatsoever the it was
00:30:32
there for you to do and achieve what you want to achieve within our environment
00:30:39
and that's why football is different because some people can't get their heads around the fact of what footballers earn and
00:30:46
they begrudge it if they're not playing well they they don't you know part and
00:30:51
parcel of managing people is understanding people and respecting people and valuing people and giving
00:30:58
people your time and your encouragement but more importantly than that it's about standing
00:31:04
alongside people and supporting them when things are not going well much more than when things are going well um being
00:31:11
their backbone and their uh and their support system very important in people's business
00:31:18
as well as that culture what else was it that helped you take birmingham because your stint at birmingham is seen as
00:31:24
being incredibly successful as you say like turn the club profitable for the first time in like recent history what how did you do that outside of
00:31:31
culture there must have been tough decisions you had to make they're very there were loads i mean from when i first went
00:31:37
there to sort of getting rid of everybody lots of businesses that i am involved in or i know friends that run
00:31:45
the biggest issue for lots of people that run those businesses is making the change to personnel when
00:31:51
they need to because they find it very difficult if someone's been with them a long time to
00:31:57
realize actually that person's skill set was great when we were growing the business and now we
00:32:03
need a different skill set to take it to the next level but you think but that's john john's been with us from it's very
00:32:08
difficult but you have to sort of step above that and say it's my
00:32:14
responsibility to ensure this business is a success for the 800 people that work there and the shareholders and
00:32:20
everything it stands for so you have to make the best decisions and you have to try and remove as much emotion as you
00:32:26
can out of it but also always doing the right thing for the right reason and not for any other reason and i think one of
00:32:33
the most important things in a people business is you must never underestimate
00:32:38
the power of kindness being kind to people and being respectful of people is really important
00:32:44
i had a few words to say about one of my sponsors on this podcast we often see the success of a business and forget
00:32:50
about their humble beginnings and vodafone who is one of the new sponsors of my podcast is no exception to that in
00:32:55
fact quite an inspiring story they started above a curry shop in the center of newbury in berkshire and that was the
00:33:02
year that they made the first ever mobile phone call over 1g that was a
00:33:08
moment in history and they've continued to innovate ever since they supported the very first sms text over 2g and most
00:33:14
recently they've made history again this time through 5g internet with the uk's first holographic call but what i love
00:33:21
about vodafone business and one of the reasons i partnered with them is they want to enable others to go on the same
00:33:26
journey that they've been on with innovation they have so much support to help specifically small businesses
00:33:32
thrive their vhub site offers free resources insights and expert one-on-one
00:33:38
sessions with vhub digital advisors so you can access what's needed to embrace innovation and drive your business
00:33:44
forward just by searching vhub for vodafone on google and you can access
00:33:50
all of the support i've described above the link is in the description below quick one as many of you know i've been
00:33:55
trying to make my life a little bit more sustainable as it relates to energy ever since i sold my range over sport and
00:34:00
bought an electric bicycle and my energy as a sponsor of this podcast one of the brands that make that transition much
00:34:06
much easier they are at the forefront of british renewable ecosmart technology
00:34:12
and their products are really really changing the game if you're on youtube you can see what i'm holding in my hand
00:34:17
this is called the eddie right it's the uk's number one solar powered diverter
00:34:23
so what is a solar diverter it's a device for people like you and me that means you can divert your excess energy
00:34:29
back into your home rather than back into the grid which will save you power and money it's super user friendly and
00:34:36
easy to install and you can control it using the my energy app on your phone to find out more about this product and
00:34:42
more products like it that will help you make that sustainable transition head over to myenergy.com and um i highly
00:34:49
recommend you check out the eddie it's um it's a real game changer for a product and one that i'm going to be installing in my home soon
00:34:54
i think david sullivan and when he described you and much the reason why he had this has this huge admiration for
00:35:00
you is exactly that i think he in an interview said you're a good sucker i think what it probably meant
00:35:06
was i wasn't afraid to make tough decisions yeah and and some of them were really tough even at 23 yeah even at 23
00:35:14
i really had a clear vision of what i wanted to achieve and knew the kind of people i needed around me to
00:35:20
achieve it you talked about how emotion sometimes gets in the way of those tough decisions
00:35:26
for a lot of people i've seen the same thing in businesses when they get a little bit romantic about the wrong objective basically or the
00:35:31
wrong thing and that ends up compromising what should be their primary objective which is the company you know in their role as ceo founder
00:35:37
whatever and i've also heard you say that emotion well maybe that was the headline of the
00:35:43
article you've described yourself as not being an overly emotional person but the article i read i remember the headline
00:35:49
was um emotion isn't in her makeup so something's words to that effect does that resonate with you is that something
00:35:56
do you think consider yourself to be an emotional business person i'm very logical as a person
00:36:01
i don't worry about the effect on me of any decision that i
00:36:07
make as long as i feel it's the right decision i worry about the effects it has on others
00:36:13
um but i'm i don't get overly emotional about things to me which are unimportant
00:36:21
whether that be criticism or social media or criticism
00:36:26
wherever that comes from as long as i know the decision i've made and why i've made that decision
00:36:32
i can stand by it and i care much more about what my family and my friends and my colleagues think of me than someone
00:36:38
on social media who i'm never going to meet don't know i'm never going to have a conversation with so i'm not emotional from that
00:36:46
point of view when you take on a football club as well and you've worked in football clubs for what two decades three decades three three decades now
00:36:53
you're dealing with emotional fan bases just like hysterical i i know because i'm a
00:36:58
manchester united fan and we're very you know emotional as a fan base right now but a hysterical almost unpleasable
00:37:04
thankless fan base it seems at times so how has that impacted you the like the voice of the fan base in your decision
00:37:11
making does it factor in every decision i make i make for them to make them prouder of the football
00:37:18
club to bring them the success that they want to deliver
00:37:24
the things they want to see at the football club and the way they want to see them whether that's what we did through the
00:37:31
pandemic for our community what we continue to do for our community the fact that we keep our prices low the
00:37:36
fact that we promised them european football and we've delivered it the fact that we have great players and great
00:37:43
culture and a great manager every every decision i make i don't make for
00:37:49
myself i make for them and i do it to the very best of my ability and sometimes they don't like
00:37:55
those decisions and sometimes they don't agree with those decisions but
00:38:01
they're all done because it's what i consider to be for the best of the club
00:38:08
and also i guess sometimes they don't understand those decisions because the fan base isn't of any football club
00:38:14
isn't a fan base that's educated on business and finance and the inner workings of a club so there's lots of like misconceptions about
00:38:21
the decisions that are being made and are they like self-profiting decisions or whatever how important is transparency in running
00:38:29
i would say in any business but really in a football club where you've got millions of people who are your i guess your stakeholders how and like clubs
00:38:35
don't seem to be that transparent largely i think it's hugely important um
00:38:41
and i think i think football supporters are very knowledgeable on the business of football it may not be a priority for
00:38:48
them but i think they are knowledgeable i mean they you've looked at clubs that have had a really difficult financial
00:38:54
time and having a firm foundation on which to build they know is important and it's equally
00:39:01
you know it's important that they know the parameters i mean we we're not
00:39:06
you know oligarchs or saudi arabian billionaires we're we're
00:39:11
english taxpayers we do the best we can and we generate as much money as we can without putting that burden on to them
00:39:19
which is why we have the cheapest season tickets in the premier league let alone in london in a brand new stadium so we
00:39:25
try and go on the journey together but i mean moving to the olympic stadium
00:39:30
54 000 season ticket holders completely sold out some people didn't like it but
00:39:36
you have to make a decision that you think is right for the right reason and going from a 35 000 cts stadium to a
00:39:42
what is going to be a 62 and a half seater stadium was a big move and a bold move and it
00:39:48
has proved to to work out for us which is why we're now playing in europe what would that have happened if we were up
00:39:54
to par probably not because it hadn't happened for many decades before that so
00:40:00
i think people don't like change and it's important that they understand why the change happens and
00:40:07
what it means to them and how it's going to affect them and how hopefully it enriches their life as opposed to make
00:40:12
it makes it worse do you have an objective at west ham to um be more transparent the recent event that
00:40:19
comes to mind around transparency in football is obviously the european super league thing where
00:40:24
suddenly one day we all wake up and all of our favorite football clubs in the like the top eight or whatever not even in the top eight but had decided they
00:40:30
were all going to join top six yeah they're not even the top yeah it wasn't even the top six there were six of them yeah exactly
00:40:36
i can't even say that manchester united were at the point but um they decided to join this this super league in europe
00:40:41
and it seemed like it was just this like self-profiting decision which kind of ruined football or whatever and after
00:40:48
that i saw a little bit of a change in some clubs like liverpool that the owners came out and did like a video
00:40:53
apologizing it was the first time i'd seen like owners post a video of them talking on social media is this one of
00:40:58
your objectives within the organization that you run at west ham to be more open and more of a glass box
00:41:04
we try to let our manager and our team do the talking for us because
00:41:10
because the the supporters don't want to hear what the ceo thinks they want to know
00:41:15
what the team think and the manager thinks and i think from our point of view we're always very respectful of
00:41:21
that you know some chairmen write program notes some chairmans do videos we tend
00:41:28
to want our team to to do the talking for us and we don't really want to put any more pressure on them and the
00:41:35
manager than they all put on themselves because they're the ones that put the pressure on themselves to be successful
00:41:40
um they don't need it from us as i look throughout your whole life one of the clear consistent themes
00:41:47
in you is your hard work yeah it's just like you know sometimes it looks a little bit like obsession in certain
00:41:52
parts of your story i read about the fridge not being turned on in your apartment someone's saying my friend my friend came to live with me and she said
00:41:59
um the the sticky stuff still around the fridge and the oven had never been turned on and i yeah what age was that
00:42:08
21. and you just you were working so hard you hadn't turned the fridge on you were in the office so much well the thought
00:42:13
of cooking and eating at home never occurred to me i'd always grab something
00:42:18
on the way in or the way out would never the thought of actually buying food because i knew if i bought food it would
00:42:24
just go go off people talk about work-life balance right and this like obsessive like they
00:42:29
do these days yeah when i was starting those that phrase had never been uttered by anyone
00:42:36
what's your opinion of the the work-life balance conversation oh i think it's uh
00:42:43
much more sensible than anything i did definitely i think that
00:42:48
you know in in my day you started at the bottom of the run and you worked your
00:42:53
way up very slowly and carefully to get as high up the ladder as you could
00:42:58
whereas now it feels much more like a web where you do a bit over here and a bit over
00:43:04
there and change and do that and then don't like that you go and do this and you have a much more rounded life
00:43:10
and i think technology has changed how we all work i mean you know you're getting up at six o'clock in the morning
00:43:16
to be in the office at seven and staying till eight o'clock at night you don't have to do that now and i think that's
00:43:21
so much for the better so do you live a more rounded life definitely yeah definitely i don't go into my
00:43:28
office at the crack of dawn and sit there all day and expect everybody else
00:43:34
with the old ball and chain to be there i mean i i know from having a family and
00:43:39
a career that actually having flexibility is really important and giving staff the ability to come in when
00:43:45
they need to and work from home when they want to is important but i guess you didn't always because i
00:43:51
remember you reading the story about your son turning to you on holiday and saying i wish your blackberry would blow up mum or something yes working mother
00:43:57
is the best title for me because there's two things that are very important in my life and that is my family and my work
00:44:05
and i've tried my very best to to make those things work together sometimes you
00:44:11
don't get it right sometimes you have to decide that family is more important than work or
00:44:16
work has a priority that's more important than family and you have to try and juggle and you spend your whole
00:44:23
life going sports day board meeting um parents evening board meeting you know
00:44:28
you never know where you can be and until you come to the conclusion
00:44:34
that you cannot be in all the places you need to be you
00:44:40
you you can only do the best you can do it's a sort of relief and sure my kids
00:44:46
will always say i worked throughout their whole growing up
00:44:52
but they learn different things from a working parent the ability to be independent have
00:44:57
uh ambition to value yourself to work hard those are
00:45:02
those are very good lessons as well and you set aside time to like switch off as they say i don't need to switch off
00:45:09
interesting i mean nothing's work unless you'd rather be doing something else i find and there
00:45:14
are times when i think oh god i got a good go and do that like today [Laughter]
00:45:21
but there are times like oh gotta go and do that and you only feel that sort of but the one thing
00:45:27
this drive for independence it also comes with another added bonus
00:45:34
and that added bonus is the ability to say no if i don't want to do anything all i have to say is no no thank you
00:45:41
when you're building a career you have to say yes to everything and you have to say yes even when you so
00:45:46
want to say no and you say yes you think how do i get out there so you're trying to give a million million things you know a million
00:45:53
excuses uh to get out of it but when you are independent
00:45:59
you can say no and that it's a great freedom to not have any obligation where you have
00:46:05
to you don't have to say yes to anything you could say no if you don't want to do something and you say yes when you want to do it and you tend to enjoy that
00:46:13
balance of your life a lot more we met in saudi arabia for anybody that doesn't know that was the first time we'd met and i'd watched you on you know tv
00:46:19
growing up but in saudi arabia we're on stage together we're in a panel of five
00:46:24
and what happened on this stage i actually came back and told my team and i said i absolutely i love her right so i don't
00:46:31
know if you know what i'm about to say i don't you don't okay so we're on stage um in saudi arabia kind of like a
00:46:37
dragon's den style thing where these entrepreneurs are coming up and pitching to us and one of the panelists one of the male panelists to my left
00:46:44
um you went to ask a question right i don't know if you remember you went to ask a question of the
00:46:50
entrepreneur that was pitching to us and then one of the male panelists to my left he kind of like interrupted you and
00:46:56
spoke and carried on speaking and you waited about 30 seconds you let him finish his kind of interruption
00:47:02
and then in front of what must have been a thousand plus people you turned to him
00:47:07
very calmly said one second i asked my question first and then you carried on with your question and the whole
00:47:12
audience burst into applause i do remember that do you remember i do remember that and i'm sat there
00:47:19
like do you remember that i do remember that i was really quite annoyed really um i was annoyed because
00:47:27
we'd gone to saudi well i'd gone to saudi to talk about the importance of
00:47:34
women and our rights and being respected and then to be spoken over on a stage i was not going
00:47:41
to let that go under any circumstances and i think it was a good way of being
00:47:47
able to show how it's important to stand up for yourself and not to be walked all over and i certainly was not
00:47:53
going to be walked all over and everyone in the room understood that moment
00:47:58
the significance you described there because it was in a very unemotional professional way it wasn't in a it was
00:48:04
the most classy like wonderful polite way
00:48:09
to destroy someone [Laughter] that's why i said to my team after i was
00:48:14
like she the way she did it was so like classly classy and gracious but it made such a profound point and you could tell
00:48:20
the point was made because the whole room burst into applause but that kind of brings me onto a wider point about
00:48:26
and as you say the reason why you're in saudi is this battle that i know you've had through your career with men kind of
00:48:32
underestimating you or sexism which i guess started when you first got the job at birmingham
00:48:37
yeah i mean i remember my first um away game i think it was watford
00:48:44
and i turned up and i saw hi could you tell me where the boardroom is and this little boy little steward on the desk he
00:48:49
went oh director's wives over there and i saw this interesting but where where is the boardroom and he said dear you don't understand
00:48:56
the director's wives go in the ladies room and i said no i don't think as you understand i am the managing director so
00:49:01
i don't know where the boardroom is and this little boy put his little glasses on he went oh yes he said yes you're
00:49:06
that woman stay here and i'll find out what to do with you because there were
00:49:12
no other women in football so there was never a woman in the boardroom and women weren't you know weren't welcome in
00:49:18
boardrooms because it was meant to be the place where the directors all met and of course they were all men and i remember thinking
00:49:25
that it was the very first door i'd kick down and i was determined that i would
00:49:30
keep that door open as wide and as long as possible to get as many other women through as possible and that is
00:49:37
something i've spent my last 30 years doing it's really important to me it's really important that that there is a
00:49:44
sense of equality and equal pay and equal respect for everything that
00:49:51
you do regardless of where you're from what sex you are what your beliefs are how you look where you're educated
00:49:58
equality is very important to me why do you think it's so important to you in particular i think because look at 23 i was given
00:50:07
the challenge and chance of a lifetime and i took that and i knew that that
00:50:12
started with someone having trust in me and i knew that there were so many talented
00:50:19
people out there that didn't have someone that had that trust in them and i wanted to be that person
00:50:24
did you experience um sort of sexist behavior from the players
00:50:30
occasionally but nothing that i couldn't deal with i mean i was very lucky in a sense
00:50:36
that from 16 to 18 i went to a boarding school that was predominantly
00:50:42
all boys so i had girls in the six forms he had like i don't know 20 girls and 600 boys so being surrounded with
00:50:51
young men all had something to say and knowing how to deal with that was something that stood me in good good
00:50:58
stead for my career so it wasn't difficult for me and i didn't get phased by it and it didn't upset me and i
00:51:04
wasn't emotionally damaged and i didn't feel scared i'd if i had to go crying to anyone i i i could deal with it it
00:51:12
didn't phase me and it was an irrelevance of mine one of the things that i've noticed specifically in the like black community is or one of the
00:51:19
concerns i had growing up was i'd seen some of my black friends that the belief that they were they were at a
00:51:25
disadvantage actually seemed to hurt them more than the disadvantage itself if that makes sense
00:51:31
do you have the same concern that worrying too much that you might not get
00:51:37
in will stop you from taking the actions to get in if that makes sense i'm sure every
00:51:44
every woman at some point in their career when they've had to say shall i
00:51:50
stop to have a family what is that going to you know how is that going to affect me how is that going to affect my pay my career
00:51:57
prospects my promotion my standing i'm sure every woman at that point has had that that thought and unfortunately or
00:52:05
fortunately as we you know women give birth to all the taxpayers in the world we
00:52:10
deserve a break really so i'm sure it is a thought that crosses people's mind i mean i read some research that 54 000
00:52:19
returning new mothers to work so badly treated because they are considered to be
00:52:26
a burden to the teams in which they work people are going to think they're going to want to go early they're not going to
00:52:32
be as focused they're going to have brain fog that they are either hounded out of their jobs or choose to leave and
00:52:38
that's a shocking statistic so yeah i can see how people
00:52:44
are just you know waiting for that moment when someone you know when you do have to say
00:52:50
might have to go and pick my son up from school i have to leave early it's a difficult conversation and you're considered to be
00:52:56
you know less valuable because you have these these these real other issues so i
00:53:02
i can understand how it plays on people's mind but it's important for women like me
00:53:08
to change attitudes because if i don't do if women like me who achieve something if we don't use our
00:53:15
voice to change it for the next generation who's gonna do it one of my guests pointed out to me um a
00:53:20
couple of weeks ago that when a woman is successful and she's a mother people always ask the question like oh my god how do you how
00:53:27
do you do it whereas when a guy is successful even if he's a father no one no one cares about no no one asks no one
00:53:32
asks because they presume he's got a wife yeah he's doing it for him yeah like joe wicks
00:53:38
joe wix has been here once or twice and when joe wicks is doing all of his stuff p4j etc no one is on his instagram going
00:53:44
what about the kids yeah but um we've had women entrepreneurs that have been here who do a very very
00:53:50
similar thing to joe wicks and it's the question that they get asked all over their instagram if they do a workout on their social media it's like well where
00:53:56
are the kids but i think there's two reasons for that one is other women want to know how do
00:54:01
you manage that so you can inspire me to to to find a way
00:54:06
um and the other is because it's uh it's an easy thing to ask a woman and that's
00:54:11
the lazy question you know where your kids what do you do with your kids how do you manage with your kids it's a bit
00:54:17
like when whenever you know whenever there's a picture of a
00:54:24
woman there's always what she's wearing yeah uh where is never for a man maybe
00:54:30
because women wear better clothes but it's always about what you're wearing where'd you get it how much was
00:54:36
it um and it's always defined you you know uh so and so in her bright pink jacket they
00:54:43
don't say oh stephen and his blacks i wish they did [Laughter]
00:54:49
i had a few words to say about one of my sponsors on this podcast as the seasons have begun to change so how's my diet
00:54:55
and um right now i'm just going to be completely honest with you i'm starting to think a lot about
00:55:00
slimming down a little bit because over the last couple of probably the last four or five months my diet has been
00:55:05
pretty bad um and it started to show a little bit really over the last two months i go to the gym about 80 percent
00:55:11
of the time so i track it with 10 of my friends in a whatsapp group and this tracker online that we all use together
00:55:16
we call it fitness blockchain and i'm currently at 81 percent um so 81 of the
00:55:22
days i've done a workout in the last 150 days right so i'm going to the gym about
00:55:28
six times a week that's been a little bit impacted by the derivative live tour but i'm trying to stick to it and so one of the things i'm
00:55:35
doing now to reduce my calorie intake and trying to get back to being nutritionally complete and all i eat is
00:55:40
i'm having the heel protein shake thank you hill for making a product that i actually like
00:55:46
the salted caramel is my favorite i've got the banana one here which is the one my girlfriend likes but for me salted
00:55:51
caramel is the one paul your husband paul
00:55:56
been together since 1995. i think you met him at birmingham yes he was like the star player how's that been you know
00:56:03
being such a career-driven person um who's had these
00:56:09
fairly all-consuming jobs throughout the years you know it's funny when i there's an interesting thing that happens in the
00:56:15
comments section when i because i ask every single guest every single podcast about relationships it's something i'm
00:56:21
just really intrigued by because i've struggled over the years with my work and trying to balance the relationship but when i ask women this people again i
00:56:27
understand why they assume that i'm asking it because for the same reasons we've just described like i'm trying to
00:56:32
understand how you can be a wife but also hard working so i just want to put that out there because i see it but i'm really curious you know you've
00:56:39
been this pretty relentless entrepreneur for the last three decades whatever it's been how has it been to to manage a
00:56:46
relationship and be that person um and a partner while also being the tremendous
00:56:51
businessman well um you have to remember that we've been married a very long time and when we first got together paul's career
00:56:59
was much more dominant than mine really and uh he was traveling around playing
00:57:04
at different clubs playing for his country and i was the one staying at home looking after the kids having my
00:57:10
career and and working around that and he was the one going around and then he
00:57:15
uh retired from football and my career took off a bit and then he became a football manager and i stayed home more
00:57:21
with the kids and we sort of we've balanced our our lives to give each other the space to do the things that we
00:57:28
love that make us rounded individuals i have no jealousy of anything he does and equally
00:57:36
to me so for example when i'm filming the apprentice um i don't know how it
00:57:41
how it works on dragon's den but when we film the apprentice when it says it's 4 am the voice over says it's for him it
00:57:47
really is 4 a.m and we work 16 to 18 hours a day seven days a week
00:57:54
for five weeks to produce that show without a break there isn't a day off and it is really hard going
00:58:01
so i always say to paul it's much better if he's not there because i want to get up at four o'clock
00:58:07
in the morning have a bath put the lights on turn the television on leave when i want then get back maybe
00:58:14
eight o'clock at night go straight to bed ready for a four a.m start the following day or
00:58:19
whatever it is so he goes to canada to see his family because his parents live in canada and he has a great time with
00:58:24
his family and i can focus on what i have to do without any distractions because what happens during that period
00:58:31
is let's say he might say um she'll go out for dinner tonight and i'll say yes and then
00:58:37
i don't get home because filming's overrun and i'm not home to one o'clock in the morning and then he's like oh
00:58:42
you're coming you're not coming like i just it's too much it's on the top of everything else it's too much it's much
00:58:48
better if i have my space to do what i've got to do and he has the space to do what he's got to do
00:58:54
but the one thing that we have in common is we've built a great family and we we respect each other we love our kids
00:59:01
our kids are our whole life even though they are you know 25 and 23 we
00:59:07
everything is about our family and everything we do together is is really important and i have to say if you said to me you got
00:59:14
one day left on the earth would you do with it i'd want to spend it with my husband and my two kids because we have
00:59:21
such a great laugh together and we're good friends and there's a real
00:59:26
bond of family between us how important is it to be canned because that's kind of what you were describing there being so
00:59:31
candid with how you're feeling and what you're going through a lot of people don't have that in relationships we're definitely candid
00:59:37
we're definitely counted and how important is that do you think i'm asking for myself i think it's really important because
00:59:43
you can't pretend to be someone you're not it's a bit like in an early part of a
00:59:49
relationship i've got a friend who's have got an early part of a relationship and the guy she is with
00:59:55
likes the opera she cannot stand it but she say oh yes love the opera and
01:00:00
i'm like why don't you say hate the opera i couldn't think of anything i'd rather do less because when he finds out
01:00:06
actually hate the opera and then or all you find out you've got to go more to
01:00:11
the opera and you're going to resent it why not just be honest from the start sir i really can't stand the opera you go you have a nice time let me know what
01:00:17
it's like i think it's probably our relationship is not needy
01:00:22
so he doesn't need me i don't need him we want to be together but we don't need to
01:00:29
be together i don't need to know where he is every minute of the day i don't need to know what his thoughts are on
01:00:35
every single thing or everything i do i think if he could have me a little bit more needy probably would but he knows
01:00:42
that i'm very self-sufficient and don't need much from anyone um
01:00:50
and i think that's again going from boarding school where you're very much on your own you'd like your own company
01:00:55
but we we don't we don't there's not a neediness in the relationship where
01:01:00
uh i say to him oh i've been invited to go um to to buckingham palace for um dinner
01:01:08
with the queen and it's white so i'm not going to that i'm not a white tie no i'm not getting a white town and he won't
01:01:13
come like he's not if he doesn't want to come to anything he won't come uh and i'll say oh i've got this you know thing
01:01:20
do you fancy doing that he'll say no definitely not or he'll say should we i fancy doing this and i'll say no i don't do that so we we very
01:01:27
candid with each other and it works for us this is the single biggest mistake i made at the start of my relationship i
01:01:32
mean my girlfriend had a conversation and we discussed it was i was saying yes too much to things to try and
01:01:37
please because you feel like that's what's needed whereas i came to learn over the years and i've
01:01:42
literally had this conversation with my girlfriend over the last month that in fact i need to just be honest more
01:01:48
regardless of how i think it might impact us because you see you're saying yes when you really want to say no yeah
01:01:55
and then you've got this sort of underlying resentment and it's much better to just say no and suffer the
01:02:00
consequences yeah definitely versus forever because as you say with the opera i then have to
01:02:05
try and live out this life right now exactly exactly and i think it's important to have your own space and
01:02:11
your own friends and do your own thing um you know you're married but you're not joined at the hip
01:02:17
and there's of course there has to be a level of mutual respect there and and honesty and trust and all of those
01:02:23
things that goes without saying but you're not the same person and it is okay to have different interests and it
01:02:29
is okay my husband is a gym bunnies professional athlete he's at the gym morning noon and night i could not think
01:02:35
of anything i'd rather do less as you can see i'm not a gym bunny i don't go to the gym i've got no desire to go to
01:02:41
the gym this is i'm going to the um yeah bye and that's it uh and i say i'm going to a
01:02:46
board meeting like yeah bye now he can think of anything he'd rather do less but it's we respect each other's space and views
01:02:53
and ideas and we don't have to debate every last thing or every last decision
01:03:00
um and everything's okay like we we don't worry about anything we don't say don't worry about anything we
01:03:06
don't sweat about stuff uh you know i don't care if he doesn't pick up his socks
01:03:13
interesting the whole world is not going to stop because they've picked up his socks
01:03:18
but i tell you what really is important in a relationship is understanding
01:03:24
when other people are under pressure and being there for them and i don't mean being in
01:03:30
there with them but i mean just being there for them and doing the things that really matter to them
01:03:36
as opposed to big romantic gestures i can't i mean i'm not a flower person i don't particularly like flowers if
01:03:42
someone bought me flowers it's okay but i'm not a big law i don't need flowers but
01:03:48
my husband used to fill my car at a petrol so it was one less thing i had to
01:03:54
worry about and it's small things like that that build a foundation because you know that person's there for
01:04:01
you even though it's not a big romantic gesture that the whole world can see because that's really not very important
01:04:06
to me have you ever done the love languages test thing no i don't even know what it is so i'm
01:04:11
not into this kind of woo i think thing but this is actually quite from just 17 magazine or something i don't even know
01:04:18
it's a series of questions which try to understand how the the type of love indicator that you most appreciate
01:04:26
and it tends to be the case that busy entrepreneurial people their their love language is and as is mine is acts of
01:04:32
service and it's exactly what you've described the tiny little thing to help in a moment so like helping you pack
01:04:38
your luggage when they know you're traveling yeah or just doing that tiny and for me when i did i did the survey with my girlfriend i'll send it to you
01:04:44
mine was acts of service for me the most meaningful thing someone can do for me in a relationship is exactly what you said it's like yeah help me with a tiny
01:04:50
thing that you know yeah but it's his sort of love language per se the same some people says like touch words of
01:04:56
affirmation acts of service oh gifts is one of them i think you take any of the above
01:05:03
does he get it yes he does no we we uh i think for us
01:05:08
the most important thing for us is having a laugh having lots of family and friends that we enjoy their company with
01:05:15
and you know it's interesting lots of couples have been married a long time they need lots of people around them to
01:05:22
break up you know they have lots of friends over lots of do lots of things big parties and stuff
01:05:28
like that though the one thing he does for me every day without fail is he takes the dog for a walk which is
01:05:35
very important and he picks up a coffee and he brings it straight to me and that
01:05:41
because he knows i cannot start my day without without a coffee and that's his big love moment every day is there a
01:05:48
need to maintain desire when you're sort of two almost three decades into your relationship is there things to do is
01:05:54
there a strategy to keep it this is the wrong podcast [Laughter]
01:06:10
date nights i don't know is there something that i should be thinking about when i get through well i think from our point of view our kids are
01:06:17
grown-ups every night's a date night for us but i think doing things that are different and unusual i mean we went on
01:06:23
this fantastic tour of thailand where we went all over did really
01:06:28
crazy wonderful things that were really good fun so we'd try and do more experience-led things but equally we are
01:06:37
you know we are prepared to go in our track suits and go out to the pub um i
01:06:44
mean our i guess our happy place if i have to think about happy place is soho farmhouse that's a real happy place for
01:06:50
us and we tend to try and go one weekend a month um and we spend two nights and really
01:06:57
don't do anything take the dog on long walks have loads to drink watch a film
01:07:02
go out to eat lots of food just relax one thing you've never i've never seen
01:07:08
you talk about from from all that i read is mental health your own mental health this is kind of a
01:07:14
fairly new conversation that's happened in the last 10 years but have you had experiences with things
01:07:19
like anxiety or depression within your own mental health no i haven't maybe i have but i just haven't focused
01:07:26
on it or haven't really thought about it i think we all have bad days don't we where we're we're sort of more snappy
01:07:33
than than others and days were really good i started hrt recently and i found
01:07:38
myself singing in the kitchen the other day which is something i don't think i've ever done and i was like chris this
01:07:44
stuff's working so but no i have this resilience from
01:07:49
this you know from my very early age to be able to put things to one side and focus on what
01:07:55
needs to be done and not really worry too much about it which is probably both a blessing and a curse and you do you
01:08:01
describe yourself i was reading one of your books do you describe yourself as a feminist definitely yeah and what does that mean
01:08:07
to you to me it means equality it doesn't mean wanting more than men it doesn't mean
01:08:13
disliking men it just means that women's rights should be equal to men's
01:08:18
it has been stigmatized hasn't it that the word feminism is this kind of like i feel like it's become a little bit of a
01:08:23
well the stigma is it's kind of this anti-man rhetoric whereas really i think men should be feel like they're feminists
01:08:30
too definitely every every man has a mother um has an aunt has a sister has a
01:08:36
cousin has a female in his life that should want them to be treated equally i
01:08:41
mean it's a it's a truth for every pound a man makes one makes 86 p and it's gonna take a hundred years to close that
01:08:47
gap and if you get into industries like finance you know that gap is is much bigger than
01:08:53
that so it's just about equality it's about not being discriminated against because you're a woman not being paid
01:09:00
less because you're a woman not being able to earn your worth because you're a woman that's what it means to
01:09:06
me and as we look forward at the future you've achieved so so much in your life in your career it seems like from what
01:09:12
you because you said earlier on that you weren't ambitious but young it seems like you've probably surpassed your childhood early years ambitions already
01:09:19
is that accurate i'd already put words in your mouth but is that accurate yeah i would think so yeah so what what's what's driving you now what's the
01:09:26
thing flipping the duvet and getting you out of bed if you've surpassed all those ambitions i mean the toughest thing about being a success is you've got to
01:09:33
keep on being a success there's no point in having a successful year last year to do nothing this year
01:09:40
and what drives that is ambition and i
01:09:45
really am disappointed when people are afraid to say they're ambitious because we tend to think ambitious people are
01:09:51
ruthless people and that's not the case ambition is that spark it's that fire
01:09:56
inside of yourself that won't let you settle for anything other than what you
01:10:02
think you deserve and what you want and uh i love what i do i feel so proud that i
01:10:10
run west ham i feel so proud that i'm in the house of laws and the work that's important there that has to be done
01:10:17
um i love the businesses that i'm involved in the charities that i'm involved in i've picked the things i
01:10:24
wanted because i wanted to say yes to them and i don't have anything i secretly wanted to say no but say yes so
01:10:31
um i think a sort of all-rounded life whether it's doing the apprentice
01:10:36
something i love is such good fun i mean we're there i don't know how it is on your show but on my show there's a real
01:10:43
level of support and we're all good friends i mean alan claude and i are going holiday together we go out for dinner we we're friends we're firm
01:10:50
friends first and and and foremost and i love what i do and i just want to keep
01:10:56
doing it is there a goal or an ambition for you or is it more of the same is that the
01:11:01
do you have like when you think okay 10 years from now i've never had that i've never set milestones
01:11:06
i mean i did have when i was younger i had a flat and i wanted a flat that had heating and then i wanted a flat that
01:11:12
had heating and a washing machine and then i wanted to flat the head heating and a washing machine and a car
01:11:18
so i did have those sort of milestones as opposed to ambitions but i don't have any of that anymore it's nothing i want
01:11:25
i don't ever look at people and think oh i wish i had that or i really want one
01:11:30
of those i actually don't want anything i don't have a car i don't need a car i like to walk i don't have a lot of stuff
01:11:38
um i'm not uh my some people i know have wardrobes the size of your flap with so
01:11:44
many clothes in i buy a load of clothes for the apprentice and i give them all away to dress for success or to my staff
01:11:50
when i'm finished i don't have a lot of stuff and i've never wanted a lot of things so i don't have this sort of oh i
01:11:57
must get a boat or a yacht i mean i'd never want anything like that i love
01:12:03
what i do i'm very happy in my life i'm very content i wake up every morning
01:12:09
without anxiety i never feel i've bitten off more than i can chew i never think how am i gonna see through the day that
01:12:16
is ahead of me i'm never thinking about how i pay my bills i'm never thinking about how do i keep up with the joneses
01:12:22
i'm never worrying about those things that weighs a lot of people down and give them a lot of issues i'm very happy
01:12:29
i'm very content i've lived a full life they say you only live once but i think if you live it right once is
01:12:36
probably enough amen i'm reflecting on 19 18 19 year old
01:12:43
karen that starts at saatchi and and then the person that sat in front of me today
01:12:48
and i'm wondering based on that full life and that experience you've had and all those boardrooms and experiences you've had
01:12:54
what you would say to a 90 because there's going to be i know that you know on several platforms the majority of our
01:12:59
listeners are female what you would say to those young women that are starting out in their career
01:13:05
what would you whisper in their ears they're on their monday morning walks today and i see them uploading this on their stories what would you say to them
01:13:10
in terms of navigating their future i would say grasp every opportunity
01:13:17
try as hard as you can never be afraid to fail and
01:13:23
i was going to swear but i won't swear please we swear every day and stand up for yourself and and trust
01:13:30
me you do not want to get to 52 and look back on your life and say i wish i would
01:13:36
have you will always regret the things you don't do more than the things that you do
01:13:41
so go and do stuff thank you it's been honestly such a huge honor and pleasure to speak to you
01:13:47
because yeah i was in my team now i've had this like weird captivated crush on you ever since i saw you in saudi arabia
01:13:52
because of that strength and that your wisdom your strength and your and all you've achieved in your life and it's
01:13:59
it's very very inspiring and interesting to especially the path you've walked in
01:14:05
such a male dominated industry and how how you you've you've forged your own success at just like 22 years old that
01:14:12
real pivotal moment where you take over a football club utterly fascinating and um
01:14:17
yeah and we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the previous guest writes a question for the next guest oh goodness you could have told me i could
01:14:23
have said something really really this is the question that's been left for you by oh okay a certain individual
01:14:29
okay interesting when you walk out of here after this beautiful conversation with stephen
01:14:34
i didn't write this after this beautiful conversation with stephen do you feel enriched and if so what would you say to the next person
01:14:42
you meet on your experience i would say
01:14:47
that sometimes it's
01:14:52
very difficult to decide to share your story because you open yourself up and
01:15:00
people get to know you in a way that maybe you never thought they would
01:15:05
but actually sharing your story you hope inspires someone else
01:15:11
and it also gives you the opportunity to look back and reflect on your own life
01:15:16
because many of us are so busy moving forward that we stop to say
01:15:21
oh [ __ ] yeah i was 19 once what was i doing when i was living in that horrible apartment with no washing machine and no
01:15:28
heating and when i didn't have a car and how i worried about paying my bills it's it's easy when you're 52 to forget who
01:15:36
you were at 18. and it's opportunities like this when you think about your life and the journey that you've been on that
01:15:42
you can you know surprise yourself and you don't do many interviews do you
01:15:48
i don't i'm i'd steal well clearly because i think it's time for other
01:15:53
women to speak i think that you know it's like i could take a whole load of non-execs and i
01:15:58
could take valuable positions that other women could have i've had my time i'm 52
01:16:04
i've been there i've done all that i don't want to appear in okay magazine i don't you know want to
01:16:11
be posing in a swimsuit or any of those things none of that appeals to me i want to lead a
01:16:18
calm incident-free quiet life
01:16:24
um inspiring others in all in a way i can i want nothing for myself out of this
01:16:31
other than i hope that people have have enjoyed it
01:16:36
i certainly believe they would have thank you so much karen for your time today and thank you for your wisdom you're such a classy
01:16:42
grace great graceful inspiring human being and yeah you've inspired me in so many ways not just from watching you
01:16:49
growing up on the apprentice but also in saudi arabia and again today so i'm i have a debt of gratitude that i owe to
01:16:55
you and thank you for being here thank you so much for having me
01:17:00
[Music]
01:17:16
you