Karren Brady: How To Win At Entrepreneurship & Love (at the same time)

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00:48I remember my first away game and I turned up and I said, "Hi, could you tell me where the boardroom is?" And he said, "Dear, you don't understand. The directors' wives go in the ladies' room." And I said, "No, I don't think it's you who understands. I am the managing director."

00:59Baroness Brady. She is one of Britain’s most successful businesswomen.

01:05I’m the kind of person that never hears the word "no." I hear, "find another way to get what you want." Leadership is about vision and your art as a leader is to persuade people to believe in your vision.

01:17I remember reading the story about your son turning to you on holiday and saying, "I wish your Blackberry would blow up."

01:23Working mother is the best title for me. Sometimes you don’t get it right. You can only do the best you can do. Ambition is that spark, it’s that fire inside of yourself that won’t let you settle for anything other than what you think you deserve and what you want.

01:40What you would say to those young women that are starting out in their career?

01:43I would say...

01:46So without further ado, I'm Stephen Bartlett and this is The Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

02:00Karren.

02:01Hello, Stephen.

02:02I've spent the last couple of days listening to your interviews and reading a lot of interviews you've done in newspapers and things like that. As I got further and further into your story and your childhood, there was this question which I wasn't able to answer despite all that I had read. You clearly from a very young age had this real deep desire to have freedom, which resulted in this independence and also resulted in this wonderful young person who had this ability to stand up for themselves. But where did this deep desire to be free from the control of others come from?

02:37I don't know. My mother always tells a story that when I was four, my grandfather was looking after me at home. My parents had this drinks cabinet and it was open and it had all these beautiful bottles and little glasses and things. She tells this story, though I don't remember it at all, that I got a chair and I climbed up and I opened the drinks cabinet. They had these little sherry glasses and I poured all little bits of liquid from it and I started to drink it.

03:09My grandfather said, "Don't do that, you'll be sick." And I said, "You leave me alone, I'll do what I want, I won't be sick." And then, of course, I drank half of the drinks cabinet and wasn't sick. My mom said you were always defiant. You always had your own mind, wanted to do your own thing, and thought you knew best.

03:32I cut my own hair when I was six because we had a school photo the next day and I decided the only person who could cut my hair was myself. You should see the picture. My fringe starts here and goes like that, and it's got lumps cut out of it. I guess I kind of thought if I didn't stand up for myself, no one would. I was very happy to stand up for myself. In life, as you go through, one of the things you realize is that sometimes you’ve just got to find your backbone and you’ve got to use it. Simply putting one foot in front of the other and keeping going is one of the philosophies I've had in my life. I always stood up for myself and never took anything lying down.

04:16"Defiant" feels like the perfect word. I was trying to figure out where it came from because usually when I sit with my guests, they can look back in hindsight and pinpoint a moment—some kind of trauma or pain or negative experience which shaped them to be a bit of an anomaly in some way. I couldn't quite figure it out.

04:36I have no idea. It's not part of any trauma that happened to me. I just guess I always felt that I had something to say, and even at a young age, I wanted to say it. I didn't care who heard it or how. I just felt I wanted to stand up for myself. I've never really thought about it, but I know it's definitely a part of my personality trait. This defiance, this "I'm going to prove people wrong," I'm going to do what I want to do how I want to do it.

05:13What's this story about your first day of school and your mom being concerned that you might be shy, and then finding out that you chucked some kid off their chair?

05:22Well, that's another story. Again, 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 would want to go home. She went to pick me up from school and she said to the teacher, "How was Karren? Was she shy?" The teacher said, "Karren? Shy? She went up to a boy in a chair and she went, 'That's my seat, get off!'" So, but I don't remember it. All these little stories always have one thing in common: that I had this level of defiance and this determination to stand up for myself.

05:55One of my suspicions when I was trying to piece together this defiance puzzle was reading about your dad and how much of a hard-working, autonomous man he was. I was wondering if they had given you a bit of a void of independence when you were growing up that led you to create this independence in yourself. Were they present and were they on you?

06:19No, definitely not on me in that way. They weren't tiger parents pushing 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.

06:31My dad left school at 14, didn't have much of an education, and worked really hard to get where he wanted. I guess the lesson from him was that nothing compensates for hard work. If you don't try something, you'll never know how good you are at something. I think maybe that sheer resilience came from his model of working hard, doing your best, trying everything, and pushing yourself forward.

06:57And would he give you advice or impart knowledge onto you, or was it you learning by his example?

07:05Almost definitely the second one. I don't remember him ever sitting me down and saying, "Do this and your life will be better or more enriched." I think it was just learning from examples, from seeing the hard work. We went from Edmonton to a little bit further up, and our lives sort of got slightly better. My dad's desire was to give my brother and I a really good education because he hadn't had one. He really wanted us to have a great education because he felt that was a big part of what was missing in his life. I guess he thought if you have a great education, you don't 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.

07:50And your mother?

07:51My mother was a housewife. She had no ambitions for work. She was a very smart woman, very nurturing in everything that she did. My dad was away working a lot, so she was alone with us on her own quite a lot, but equally fun-loving and stylish. She spoke her mind too.

08:11And you at this age didn't have big ambitions for what you wanted to do in the future in terms of specific career options. There's a quote 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 really didn't know what she wanted to do or where she was going to go. The greatest gift that my parents gave me was self-esteem."

08:31Yeah, I think you're very lucky if you know what you want to do, if you have a vocation or a calling at a young age. I think that is a remarkable thing that you should channel. I didn't know what I was good at. I didn't feel I was particularly good at anything. It wasn't as though I had a particular panache for anything. I wasn't particularly ambitious, but I know I wanted to do something with my life, but I didn't know what.

09:05I think ambition is something that sort of creeps up on you slowly when you realize you're good at something. You think, "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 might be the best person I know at this." That inspires you to keep going. But I left school at 18. I had O-levels and A-levels as they were in those days, but I had no qualifications. But what I had worked out was something really important, and that is I'd worked out my core values.

09:34At 18, I had worked out that I was ambitious, I was determined, and I had integrity. Core values are the things that sort of make you who you are. They are the things that lead you to make the decisions you make for yourself and the way you make decisions. At 18, I knew those things about myself. At 52, I think they're still my core values. Armed with those things, I set out to get a job. The one thing I wanted for my life was independence. I wanted to say what I wanted to do, how I wanted to do it, and when I wanted to do it.

10:12That's predominantly because I'd been at boarding school from a very early age. Going back to my father wanting to give me the best education, he thought a boarding school education was probably the best. At boarding school, you get up when you're told, you eat what you're told, you wear what you're told, and you do what you're told. I'd had enough. I knew that independence only really came when you had your own money. The problem is, at 18, I didn't know how you made money. But I kind of worked out that almost everyone works for someone even before they work for themselves.

10:39So I went out and I got a job. At 18, with no qualifications other than O-levels and A-levels, but armed with my core values, I really wasn't afraid to work hard. I was really ambitious, I would try anything and I would do anything, but with integrity. I went out and I got a job and I started my career.

10:57Boarding school is a very restrictive place, the antithesis of freedom. Your childhood sounded like you had quite a lot of relative freedom. Is it possible that you went from a childhood where you had a bit more freedom, and then because boarding school was such a big change, you had a bit of an allergic reaction to someone taking your freedom?

11:22No, I don't think so. My father was quite strict. There wasn't a sense where we were running around the streets doing our own thing. My mother and father were very—they weren't disciplined in that way, I never felt disciplined, but equally, we weren't latchkey kids where we came and went as we wanted. But I went to a boarding school in the middle of nowhere, in a place called Ware in Hertfordshire, that was a convent, and it was really strict.

11:52My friends who are still my friends from when we were at school in those days, we remember only one thing about that whole time: the boredom of simply being there and having mass three times a day. And the second thing was we were hungry all the time. Every day was a fast day. You'd have the holy saint of such and such day, and it was a fast day. We remember those two things and the sort of repressive attitude of wearing the same thing, doing the same thing, doing what you're told, not being able to explore things you're interested in. None of us could wait to leave.

12:30But it did teach me resilience—the ability to do the things that need to be done when they need to be done, whether you like it or not. That's because every day was the same. There's a great lesson, I think, in life in being able to force yourself to do things you don't want to do because you have to. That taught me a great deal of patience, resilience, and determination.

12:58Which is funny because much of your life has been very much the opposite—making sure you don't have to do things you don't want to do and being restricted by the rules of others.

13:08But there is a sense in every job you do, whether you're a pop star and you've got to sing the same songs every night, or whether you're working in an office or working for someone else or reporting to shareholders. There's an element of our lives that has to be done. You get that discipline from being 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 opposed to saying "I don't want to do it and I'm not going to do it." There's a difference.

13:39You said earlier about how you started at one point to notice the advantages or the skills you had over your peers at a young age around maybe 18 when you started to join the working world. What were those skills that you started to notice?

14:00I went into sales, which is the sort of place where most people go when they don't really have anything else they can do because you're either good at it or you're not. You don't need any particular skills other than being able to have resilience, picking up the phone, keep trying, not taking the knockbacks, and going forward. I realized I was good at it. I would never take "no" for an answer. I would always be determined. I would continue to pick up the phone. I had a sort of dogged attitude to not letting the knocks get me down when people slammed the phone down or they don't want to speak.

14:38That ability to learn the language was key. It wasn't "Do you want any?" it was "How many do you want?" It was that sort of subtle change of being able to be personable. I think I worked out at an early age that people do business with people. It doesn't matter how much brain you have; if you don't have a personality, you can't put that brain into a good place. So having a personality and having a brain is a good combination.

15:06I worked in telesales as well for four years. It was genuinely the most formative experience of my life, also because I didn't have the qualifications.

15:18Yeah, and it's a good place to start. I'm not particularly creative; I couldn't have done anything in the arts world or anything like that. But actually picking up the phone, having that resilience, being prepared to take the knockbacks, keep pushing forward, never taking "no" for an answer—those are things I learned from a very young age.

15:37So you did sales at Saatchi & Saatchi?

15:39No, I did menial office work at Saatchi & Saatchi. I left Saatchi to go into sales at 19 and I worked for London Broadcasting Company where we sold advertising space.

15:50And that's where you met David Sullivan?

15:51Yes, that's right. He was one of my very first clients. He took radio advertising and within six months of me meeting him and selling him radio advertising, he was spending two million pounds a year on radio, which was the highest spender on commercial radio in the country. I was on a really high commission.

16:11Well done.

16:13It was a good time.

16:14So you meet David Sullivan and he's not spending on radio at the time when you met him and he's kind of against it, I hear?

16:21Yeah, he didn't think it particularly worked. I sold him the idea that he would take the advertising package and if sales didn't go up, he didn't have to pay for it. He said, "Yeah, sounds okay to me." I sort of thought, "If he doesn't pay for it, I'm going to be in trouble," but I thought I'd worry about that when it happened. I was just pleased to have made the sale. He took the advertising, the advertising did work, and he kept spending and spending.

16:45If we zoom in on that sale, that deal you closed with David Sullivan. I know a lot of people couldn't have closed that deal. As you look back in hindsight, what was it about Karren that helped you to close that deal?

17:01Well, one, I went to see him. I turned up at his offices and I waited until he saw me. I waited a long time, quite a few hours, until he felt, I think, sorry for me and I wasn't going anywhere. He let me do the pitch, the presentation, which I did. Equally, I always had this feeling that "What's the worst that can happen?" And the worst that can 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 package. I always looked on the bright side.

17:30So I turned up, I did the deal, I presented well, I had all the facts and figures, and I knew what I was talking about. I guess he thought he took a chance. I think the package was—I can't remember but it wasn't a lot of money. It wasn't a multi-million pound deal that someone would have to really think about. I'd pitched 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 too little, just in that spot. I persuaded him; I had this art of persuasion. I talked about what it could do for him, how it would work, and he took it. That was the beginning of one of my very own clients that stayed with me for many years, and still today we're still working together at West Ham some 30 years later.

18:16That is pretty incredible. Did he know you were coming that day to pitch? Had he booked in a meeting to see you?

18:21I can't remember. I think I'd booked in a meeting. Whether he knew about it or not, I don't know. I can't remember.

18:29Because that did end up being quite an early pivotal moment for you. It's quite a testament to the fact that people do buy from people and that you were a very persuasive person. But also, there's a sub-lesson in there which I've heard you talk about before, which is when you're young and you don't have a ton to lose. Young people fall into this trap of thinking that "no" is some kind of death sentence or it's fatal. But as you say, when you've got nothing else to lose...

18:51Yeah, I had nothing to lose. The worst thing that could have happened is he didn't buy it. I had to sell it to someone. I was very independent. I wasn't relying on my parents for money. I was relying on myself. I had no safety net, no nest egg. I had to pay my rent, 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 happen. It wasn't a case of "well, we'll see." But I'm the kind of person that never hears the word "no." When someone says "no" to me, I don't hear "no." I hear "find another way to get what you want." And that's what I always do. I think "no" is only really pivotal if it ultimately stops you doing what you want to do. If you hear "no" and you can find another way of getting what you want, that's just as good as hearing a "yes."

19:41Am I right in thinking that you're someone that really believes in a philosophy versus current skills? When you talk, you talk in terms of your own philosophy to life. A lot of people, when they speak, they speak in terms of skills or hacks or tricks or whatever. But yours seems to be much deeper than that, even saying that default to optimism all the time.

20:02I don't know, I've never really thought about it. I think you need the ability to work hard, the ability to push yourself forward, the ability to have a backbone, the ability to have a dogged sort of determination. And if you have a great idea, so much the better.

20:24People say to me, "What is an entrepreneur?" Well, an entrepreneur is someone that just spots a gap in the market for a service or a product that is either not available or available but they can make it better. And they're the kind of people that well-meaning people say, "Oh, don't do that, that's very risky," but they are prepared to back themselves and put all those doubters to one side and just plow through it. That's sort of been what I've done for 30 years.

20:52As you said, that relationship with David Sullivan has sustained still today, and he actually went on to hire you. So what have you learned about the importance of relationship building in business?

21:03I think that part and parcel of running a great business is to have really good culture. Really good culture comes from trust and being candid and being honest and supporting one another. It's interesting that David Sullivan is still with me in West Ham, so is David Gold—two people who I started with from a very young age and we're still all working together. We still have lots to talk about and lots of ideas and we still bounce off each other. We trust each other and I think that's a really fundamental part of growing a great business.

21:39"Being candid," you said there. Talk to me about how candid you are in business.

21:43Very. I think it's important. I have a great candid atmosphere at West Ham. I want people to say what they don't think is right, what they think could be better, what needs to be changed. I think if you have too many like-minded people running the same organization, you're so busy patting each other off on the back as you sort of follow each other off the 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 mean we stand for? What are our values? What's our purpose?" You need people to be honest and candid, and I think candid is good.

22:19And how do I go about creating a candid culture in my company, say if I'm running a business and I want people to be more candid? What do I do and don't do to make sure that we arrive at that place?

22:29Well, the most important thing that people want from you when you're running your organization is your time. They want time with you, they want you to listen to them, they want to be in your inner circle, they want to be part of it. That's what people want. It's become less about money and status and more about being in the know, being in that room when decisions are made, and making people feel that they can be in the room, that they're part of the discussion, and that you'll listen to them, and that they can say what they want without worrying about what's going to happen to me next. I think that's really important.

23:15So if say someone's in the boardroom with you and they say something which is maybe even negative towards a decision you've made. I guess you've got to be cautious of your reaction to make sure that they don't in the future shy away from speaking up because you're a very powerful woman and it would be quite intimidating to tell you the truth for some people.

23:33I don't think—I think if you spoke to my staff, they would all say that the one thing Karren is great at is listening and understanding. I think the minute you think as a leader of an organization you know everything is the minute you don't know anything at all. You have to believe in lifelong learning. You have to believe that the people around you are valuable enough to have a different opinion to yours that is just as important. The minute you think they don't have an opinion that's as important as yours, you either don't have the right team or you don't have the right team with the right skills. I like to employ people better than me because it sort of proves I'm better than them, if that makes sense. Then when you have people with great knowledge and great skills, why wouldn't you listen to them when they tell you something? Of course you have debates. I want to do everything quickly, with strength and power and purpose. Others are like, "Hang on a minute, let's not go at that pace, let's try and do this, let's do something else."

24:41Sometimes you follow your gut instinct because it's important. People say to me, "Well, what is a gut instinct?" A gut instinct, I think, it's made up of all the experiences you've had through your career. You've sort of been in that movie before, you've had that problem before—different problem, in a different moment, about a different thing, but very similar—and you know the outcome. So your gut instinct goes, "Hang on a minute, I've somehow been here before and I know how this plays out." I find if I follow my gut instinct, I tend to make the right decisions, and if I ignore it, I tend to go bad. But sometimes you need someone to go, "Hang on a minute, take a step back, have another look at this, have a think about this." It's a very lonely place if you don't have people around you that want the same things as you, that want to help you achieve and build the things that you want to do. Being able to listen to people and encourage people to have their thoughts and ideas is, I think, really, really important.

25:51So how much of an organization that you run and what parts of it are a democracy? I’m trying to see that balance between you being assertive in making the call but also operating in some respects like a bit of a democracy where you're hearing everyone's opinions. Is there like a balancing act?

26:09Yeah, I mean, look, if you think about leadership—and you should never confuse leadership with management. Management is about setting out a series of goals and managing people to deliver them. Very important, but that's not leadership. Leadership is about vision, and sometimes it's only a vision you can see. Your art as a leader is to persuade people to believe in your vision and help you deliver it.

26:35We have large groups of people that help deliver visions. So our next vision for West Ham, for example, is to go from a 60,000 capacity to a 62,500 capacity. We're in the process, we've got planning permission for it, in the process of going through that transition. 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 people get in? Should there be more bars? Those are huge decisions. One person cannot make those decisions, and everybody who has a stake in that decision should have a say. That's everyone from the commercial department right through to the person who runs the disabled supporters group. Everyone needs to make that decision together and that's how you breed great culture: listening to people, understanding the problems, finding the solutions together, having some fun while you do it.

27:35So it's not all over charts and in a very rigid way. It is much more in a conversational way. For example, I took a load of my team to Seville when we played in Europa. We went together, we had a great time together, we used the downtime to talk about things that are important to us. It's part and parcel of creating a place where people feel really proud to work, they feel really proud of what they do, and they feel really well-respected.

28:10And they have a lot of fun. I just realized I'm playing at your stadium!

28:15Oh, is it in the Soccer Aid?

28:19Yes. Hopefully, that will sell it out for you. But I just realized as you were talking then, yeah, I’m playing at that unbelievable, beautiful stadium, which I know you were a big part of winning the bid to move over there. On the topic of football then, David Sullivan ends up hiring you from LBC and you join his corporation. Then at 22, 23 years old, you see an advert in the Financial Times for Birmingham City, which is in financial hardship and in administration. You persuaded David to buy Birmingham City.

29:01What...?

29:03Well, he, to be fair to him, he was looking at buying either a racecourse or a football club. He was interested in doing something in that area. Birmingham had gone into administration and there was a little ad that said "Football Club for sale." I thought that was interesting and I got the details and I went to him. I said, "There's this football club for sale. You buy it and I'll run it."

29:24What?

29:25And he was like, "Ooh, football, very male-dominated. You'll have to be twice as good as the men to be thought as even only half as good." And I said, "Well, luckily that's not difficult." And he said, "Okay, we'll give it a go." And we did. It was bought really quickly within three days. That was like a Friday and on the Tuesday we owned the club and that was it. We went in there, we made so many mistakes, but we had a great time. It was such a fantastic experience to be given the challenge and chance of a lifetime to run a great business and change it, take it out of administration. I mean, it made a trading profit for the first time in its history after my first year and it was a real learning curve, but it was great fun.

30:05I love how you glossed over the fact so graciously that at 23 you took over the management of a football club after seeing an ad in the Financial Times and persuading David to buy it. You took over the management of a football club at 23.

30:18Yes. I was desperate to look at least 25! At the press conference, big hair, shoulder pads, power dressing.

30:28Did you just have the courage and the conviction and the confidence to take on that role? Because football is a complete—like I don't even think, no, I definitely would not have the confidence to run a football club. I've loved football, I've followed it my whole life, I've run big businesses, but a football club is a whole different beast.

30:46It is slightly different, and it's different because it doesn't make anything, it doesn't manufacture anything, it doesn't produce anything other than more footballers. All its assets are people. Being able to manage people and to manage the diversity of those people. So on one hand, I have someone who works in my ticket office, let’s say they're 18 years old, they can probably earn 23,000 pounds a year. On the other hand, I have an 18-year-old who plays football who earns 23,000 pounds a week. The 18-year-old on 23,000 pounds a year can't imagine what it's like to have 23,000 pounds a week, and a footballer on 23,000 pounds a week probably has no idea anyone lives on 23,000 pounds a year.

31:33How do you create an environment where both of those 18-year-olds feel respected and valued and feel their work is important? It comes back to that culture by having an environment where everyone has to do everything within their skill set to make the business a success and know that that is valued and respected. There is no ceiling on your ambition, whether it’s the 18-year-old that wants to go into the first team or the 18-year-old who works in the ticket office that one day wants to run it. It's up to you where you go. I wanted to create a sort of business that I wanted to work in when I was 18 where nothing held you back, there were no politics, there was no discrimination whatsoever. It was there for you to do and achieve what you wanted to achieve within our environment.

32:30That's why football is different because some people can't get their heads around the fact of what footballers earn and they begrudge it if they're not playing well. Part and parcel of managing people is understanding people and respecting people and valuing people and giving people your time and your encouragement. But more importantly than that, it's about standing alongside people and supporting them when things are not going well, much more than when things are going well. Being their backbone and their support system is very important in a people business.

33:08As well as that culture, what else was it that helped you take Birmingham—because your stint at Birmingham is seen as being incredibly successful as you say, like turned the club profitable for the first time in recent history? How did you do that? Outside of culture, there must have been tough decisions you had to make.

33:24Very. There were loads. I mean from when I first went there to sort of getting rid of everybody. Lots of businesses that I am involved in or I know friends that run, the biggest issue for lots of people that run those businesses is making the change to personnel when they need to. Because they find it very difficult if someone's been with them a long time to realize, "Actually, that person's skill set was great when we were growing the business and now we need a different skill set to take it to the next level." But you think, "But that's John. John's been with us for forever." It's very difficult.

34:02But you have to sort of step above that and say, "It's my responsibility to ensure this business is a success for the 800 people who work there and the shareholders and everything it stands for." So you have to make the best decisions and you have to try and remove as much emotion as you can out of it, but also always doing the right thing for the right reason and not for any other reason. I think one of the most important things in a people business is you must never underestimate the power of kindness. Being kind to people and being respectful of people is really important.

34:34I think David Sullivan, when he described you and much of the reason why he has this huge admiration for you, is exactly that. I think in an interview he said you were a good "sacker."

34:44I think what he probably meant was I wasn't afraid to make tough decisions. And some of them were really tough.

34:51Even at 23?

34:53Yeah, even at 23. I really had a clear vision of what I wanted to achieve and knew the kind of people I needed around me to achieve it.

36:01You talked about how emotion sometimes gets in the way of those tough decisions 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 wrong thing, and that ends up compromising what should be their primary objective, which is the company. And I’ve also heard you say that—well maybe that was the headline of the article—you’ve described yourself as not being an overly emotional person. I remember the headline was "Emotion isn't in her makeup." Does that resonate with you? Do you consider yourself to be an emotional business person?

36:39I'm very logical as a person. I don't worry about the effect on me of any decision that I make, as long as I feel it's the right decision. I worry about the effect it has on others, but I don't get overly emotional about things to me which are unimportant, whether that be criticism on social media or criticism wherever that comes from. As long as I know the decision I've made and why I've made that decision, I can stand by it. I care much more about what my family and my friends and my colleagues think of me than someone on social media who I'm never going to meet, don't know, and never going to have a conversation with. So I'm not emotional from that point of view.

37:27When you take on a football club as well, and you've worked in football clubs for three decades now, you're dealing with emotional fanbases. Just like hysterical—I know because I'm a Manchester United fan and we're very emotional as a fanbase right now—but a hysterical, almost unpleasable, thankless fanbase it seems at times. So how has that impacted you, the voice of the fanbase in your decision making? Does it factor in?

37:53Every decision I make, I make for them. To make them prouder of the football club, to bring them the success that they want, to deliver 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 pandemic for our community, what we continue to do for our community, the fact that we keep our prices low, the fact that we promised them European football and we delivered it, the fact that we have great players and great culture and a great manager. Every decision I make, I don't make for myself; I make for them. And I do it to the very best of my ability. Sometimes they don't like those decisions and sometimes they don't agree with those decisions, but they're all done because it's what I consider to be for the best of the club.

38:48And also, I guess, sometimes they don't understand those decisions because the fanbase of any football club isn't a fanbase that's educated on business and finance and the inner workings of a club. So there's lots of misconceptions about the decisions that are being made and are they self-profiting decisions or whatever. How important is transparency in running—I would say in any business but really in a football club where you've got millions of people who are your stakeholders? Clubs don't seem to be that transparent largely.

39:19I think it's hugely important. I think football supporters are very knowledgeable on the business of football. It may not be a priority for them, but I think they are knowledgeable. They've looked at clubs that have had a really difficult financial time, and having a firm foundation on which to build, they know is important. It's equally important that they know the parameters. We're not oligarchs or Saudi Arabian billionaires. We're English taxpayers. We do the best we can and we generate as much money as we can without putting that burden onto them, which is why we have the cheapest season tickets in the Premier League, let alone in London in a brand new stadium.

40:05So we try and go on the journey together. Moving to the Olympic Stadium, 54,000 season ticket holders completely sold out. Some people didn't like it. But you have to make a decision that you think is right for the right reason. Going from a 35,000-seater stadium to what is going to be a 62.5 thousand seater stadium was a big move and a bold move and it has proved to work out for us, which is why we're now playing in Europe. Would that have happened if we were at Upton Park? Probably not, because it hadn't happened for many decades before that. I think people don't like change and it's important that they understand why the change happens and what it means to them and how it's going to affect them and how hopefully it enriches their life as opposed to makes it worse.

40:53Do you have an objective at West Ham to be more transparent? The recent event that comes to mind around transparency in football is obviously the European Super League thing where suddenly one day we all wake up and all of our favorite football clubs in the top six had decided they were all going to join this Super League in Europe. It seemed like it was just this self-profiting decision which ruined football or whatever. After that, I saw a little bit of a change in some clubs, like Liverpool, the owners came out and did like a video apologizing. It was the first time I'd seen owners post a video of them talking on social media. Is this one of your objectives within the organization to be more open?

41:45We try to let our manager and our team do the talking for us because the supporters don't want to hear what the CEO thinks. They want to know what the team thinks and the manager thinks. I think from our point of view, we're always very respectful of that. Some chairmen write program notes, some chairmen do videos. We tend to want our team to do the talking for us and we don't really want to put any more pressure on them and the manager than they all put on themselves because they're the ones that put the pressure on themselves to be successful. They don't need it from us.

42:23As I look throughout your whole life, one of the clear consistent themes in you is your hard work. It's just like, sometimes it looks a little bit like obsession in certain parts of your story. I read about the fridge not being turned on in your apartment, someone saying, "Why isn't your fridge on?"

42:39My friend came to live with me and she said the sticky stuff is still round the fridge and the oven had never been turned on.

42:46What age was that?

42:4821.

42:49And you just were working so hard you hadn't turned the fridge on? You were in the office so much?

42:53The thought of cooking and eating at home never occurred to me. I'd always grab something on the way in or the way out. I would never—the thought of actually buying food because I knew if I bought food, it would just go off.

43:06People talk about work-life balance, right? In when I was starting, that phrase had never been uttered by anyone. What's your opinion of the work-life balance conversation?

43:21Oh, I think it's much more sensible than anything I did, definitely. I think that in my day, you started at the bottom of the rung and you worked your way up very slowly and carefully to get as high up the ladder as you could. Whereas now it feels much more like a web where you do a bit over here and a bit over there and then go change and do that and then don't like that and you go and do this. And you have a much more rounded life. And I think technology has changed how we all work. I mean you're getting up at 6:00 in the morning to be in the office at 7:00 and staying to 8:00 at night. You don't have to do that now, and I think that's so much for the better.

44:03Do you live a more rounded life?

44:05Definitely. Yeah, definitely. I don't go into my office at the crack of dawn and sit there all day and expect everybody else with their old ball and chain to be there. I know from having a family and a career that actually having flexibility is really important and giving staff the ability to come in when they need to and work from home when they want to is important.

44:31But I guess you didn't always. I remember the story about your son turning to you on holiday and saying, "I wish your Blackberry would blow up, Mom," or something.

44:36Yes. "Working mother" 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. I've tried my very best to make those things work together. Sometimes you don't get it right. Sometimes you have to decide that family is more important than work or work has a priority that's more important than family and you have to try and juggle. You spend your whole life going "Sports day, boardroom meeting," "Parents' evening, boardroom meeting." You never know where you can be. Until you come to the conclusion that you cannot be in all the places you need to be. You can only do the best you can do. It's a sort of relief. And sure, my kids will always say I worked through their whole growing up. But they learn different things from a working parent. The ability to be independent, have ambition, to value yourself, to work hard—those are very good lessons as well.

45:45And do you set aside time to "switch off," as they say?

45:48I don't need to switch off. I mean, nothing’s work unless you’d rather be doing something else, I find. And there are times when I think, "Oh God, I've got to go and do that," like today. No, I'm only joking! But there are times when you go, "I've got to go and do that," but the one thing, this drive for independence, it also comes with another added bonus, 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, thank you." When you're building a career, you have to say "yes" to everything. And you have to say "yes" even when you so want to say "no." And you say "yes" and you think, "How do I get out of this?" You try and think of a million excuses to get out of it. But when you are independent, you can say "no," and it’s a great freedom to not have any obligation where you have to—you don't have to say "yes" to anything. You can say "no" if you don't want to do something, and you say "yes" when you want to do it. You tend to enjoy that balance of your life a lot more.

46:55We met in Saudi Arabia, for anybody that doesn't know. That was the first time we'd met, though I'd watched you on TV growing up. In Saudi Arabia, we were on a stage together, on a panel of five. What happened on this stage? I actually came back and told all my team and I said, "I absolutely love her." I don't know if you know what I'm about to say?

47:13I don't.

47:14Okay. So we're on stage in Saudi Arabia, kind of like a *Dragons' Den* style thing where these entrepreneurs are coming up and pitching to us. One of the panelists, one of the male panelists to my left, you went to ask a question of the entrepreneur that was pitching to us, and then one of the male panelists to my left, he kind of like interrupted you and spoke and carried on speaking. You waited about 30 seconds, you let him finish his kind of interruption, and then in front of what must have been a thousand plus people, you turned to him and very calmly said, "One second, I asked my question first," and then you carried on with your question, and the whole audience burst into applause.

47:55I do remember that. I was really quite annoyed. I was annoyed because we'd gone to Saudi, well I'd gone to Saudi, to talk about the importance of women and our rights and being respected. And then to be spoken over on a stage, I was not going to let that go under any circumstances. I think it was a good way of being able to show how it's important to stand up for yourself and not to be walked all over, and I certainly was not going to be walked all over.

48:35And everyone in the room understood that moment for the big significance you described there because the whole room burst into applause. It was in a very un-emotional, professional way; it wasn't in a—it was the most classy, wonderful, polite way to destroy someone. It was like—but that's why I said to my team after, I was like, "She—the way she did it was so classy and gracious," but it made such a profound point. You could tell the point was made because the whole room burst into applause. This brings me onto a wider point about this battle that I know you've had through your career with men kind of underestimating you or sexism which I guess started when you first got the job at Birmingham.

49:17Yeah, I mean I remember my first away game, I think it was Watford. I turned up and said, "Hi, could you tell me where the boardroom is?" And this little old boy, a little steward on the desk, he went, "Oh, directors' wives over there." And I said, "That's interesting, but where is the boardroom?" And he said, "Dear, you don't understand. The directors' wives go in the ladies' room." And I said, "No, I don't think it's you who understands. I am the managing director, so I want to know where the boardroom is." And this little boy put his little glasses on and he went, "Oh yeah, he said, yeah, you're that woman. Stay here and I'll find out what to do with you." Because there were no other women in football. So there was never a woman in the boardroom, and women weren't welcome in boardrooms because it was meant to be the place where the directors all met and of course they were all men. I remember thinking that it was the very first door I'd kicked down and I was determined that I would keep that door open as wide and as long as possible to get as many other women through as possible. That is something I've spent my last 30 years doing. It's really important to me that there is a sense of equality and equal pay and equal respect for everything that you do regardless of where you're from, what sex you are, what your beliefs are, how you look, where you're educated. Equality is very important to me.

50:42Why do you think it's so important to you in particular?

50:45I think because, look, at 23 I was given the challenge and chance of a lifetime and I took that. I knew that that started with someone having trust in me. I knew that there were so many talented people out there that didn't have someone that had that trust in them, and I wanted to be that person.

51:06Did you experience sexist behavior from the players?

51:09Occasionally, but nothing that I couldn't deal with. I mean, I was very lucky in a sense that from 16 to 18 I went to a boarding school that was predominantly all boys. So it had girls in the sixth form, so you had like 20 girls and 600 boys. Being surrounded with young men who all had something to say and knowing how to deal with that was something that stood me in good 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 wasn't emotionally damaged and I didn't feel scarred and I didn't have to go crying to anyone. I could deal with it, it didn't phase me, and it was an irrelevance of mine.

51:55When you're part of a demographic or a marginalized community or an ethnicity that is typically at a disadvantage or typically runs into a lot of resistance or discrimination. One of the things that I've noticed specifically in the Black community is the belief that they were at a disadvantage actually seemed to hurt them more than the disadvantage itself. Do you have the same concern that worrying too much that you might not get in will stop you from taking the actions to get in?

52:37I'm sure every woman at some point in their career when they've had to say, "Shall I stop to have a family? What is that going to do, how is that going to affect me, how is that going to affect my pay, my career prospects, my promotion, my standing?" I'm sure every woman at that point has had that thought. And unfortunately, or fortunately, as women give birth to all the taxpayers in the world, we deserve a break really. I'm sure it is a thought that crosses people's mind. I read some research that 54,000 returning new mothers to work are so badly treated because they are considered to be 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 be as focused, they're going to have brain fog, that they are either hounded out of their jobs or choose to leave. That's a shocking statistic really.

53:36So yeah, I can see how people are just waiting for that moment when someone—when you do have to say, "I 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 less valuable because you have these other issues. So I can understand how it plays on people's minds. But it's important for women like me to change attitudes, because if I don't use our voice to change it for the next generation, who's going to do it?

54:14One of my guests pointed out that when a woman is successful and she's a mother, people always ask the question, "Oh my god, how do you do it?" Whereas when a guy is successful even if he's a father, no one cares.

54:27No, no one asks. Because they presume he's got a wife who's doing it for him.

54:32Yeah, like Joe Wicks. When Joe Wicks is doing all of his stuff, no one is on his Instagram going, "What about the kids?" But we've had women entrepreneurs that have been here who do a very similar thing to Joe Wicks and it's the question that they get asked all over their Instagram.

54:52But I think there's two reasons for that. One is other women want to know how do you manage that so you can inspire me to find a way. And the other is because it's an easy thing to ask a woman. And that's the lazy question, "Where are your kids, what do you do with your kids, how do you manage with your kids?" It's a bit like whenever there's a picture of a woman, there's always what she's wearing. Whereas never for a man. Maybe because women wear better clothes, I don't know! But it's always about what you're wearing, "Where'd you get it? How much was it?" And it's always defined you, you know, "So-and-so in her bright pink jacket." They don't say, "Oh, Stephen and his black tuxedo." I wish they did, but they don't!

55:45Paul, your husband Paul. Been together since 1995. I think you met him at Birmingham. He was like the star player. How's that been, being such a career-driven person who's had these fairly consuming jobs throughout the years? It's funny, when I ask women about relationships, people assume that I'm asking it because of the reasons we've just described. But I'm really curious, you've been this pretty relentless entrepreneur for the last three decades, how has it been to manage a relationship and be that person and a partner while also being the tremendous businesswoman?

56:43Well, you have to remember that we've been married a very long time. When we first got together, Paul's career was much more dominant than mine really. He was traveling around, playing at different clubs, playing for his country. I was the one staying at home looking after the kids, having my career and working around that. He was the one going around. And then he retired from football and my career took off a bit. Then he became a football manager and I stayed at home more with the kids. We balanced our lives to give each other the space to do the things that we loved, that make us rounded individuals. I have no jealousy of anything he does and equally to me.

57:28For example, when I'm filming *The Apprentice*, when we film *The Apprentice*, when the voiceover says "It's 4:00 AM," it really is 4:00 AM. And we work 16 to 18 hours a day, seven days a week for five weeks to produce that show without a break. There isn't a day off. And it is really hard going. So I always say to Paul, it's much better if he's not there. Because I want to get up at 4:00 in the morning, have a bath, put the lights on, turn the television on, leave when I want, then get back maybe 8:00 at night, go straight to bed ready for a 4:00 AM start the following day. So he goes to Canada to see his family because his parents live in Canada. He has a great time with his family and I can focus on what I have to do without any distractions. Because what happens during that period is let's say he might say, "Let's go out for dinner tonight," and I'll say "yes" and then I don't get home because filming's overshot and I'm not home till 1:00 in the morning. And then he's like "Are you coming? Are you not coming?" and I just—it's too much. On top of everything else, it's too much. It's much better if I have my space to do what I've got to do and he has his space to do what he's got to do.

58:45But the one thing that we have in common is we've built a great family. We respect each other, we love our kids, our kids are our whole life, even though they are 25 and 23. Everything is about our family and everything we do together is really important. And I have to say, if you said to me you've got one day left on the earth, what would you do with it? I'd want to spend it with my husband and my two kids. Because we have such a great laugh together and we're good friends and there's a real bond of family between us.

59:19How important is it to be candid? Because that's kind of what you were describing there—being so candid with how you're feeling and what you're going through. A lot of people don't have that in relationships.

59:26Oh, we're definitely candid. We're definitely candid.

59:30And how important is that, do you think? I'm asking for myself.

59:32I think it's really important because you can't pretend to be someone you're not. It's a bit like in an early part of a relationship—I've got a friend who's in an early part of a relationship and the guy she is with likes the opera, she cannot stand it. But she says, "Oh yes, love the opera." And I'm like, "Why didn't you just say I hate the opera, I couldn't think of anything I'd rather do less?" Because when he finds out, actually you hate the opera, and then—or worse, you find out you've got to go more to the opera and you're going to resent it. Why not just be honest from the start?

60:09I think it's probably our relationship is not needy. He doesn't need me, I don't need him. We want to be together, but we don't *need* to 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 every single thing or everything I do. I think if he could have me a little bit more needy, he probably would, but he knows that I'm very self-sufficient and don't need much from anyone. And I think that's again going from boarding school where you're very much on your own, you like your own company. But we don't have a neediness in the relationship. Like I say to him, "Oh, I've been invited to go to Buckingham Palace for dinner with the Queen." And he says, "I'm not going to that. I'm not—white tie? I'm not getting a white tie." He won't come—if he doesn't want to come to anything, he won't come. And I'll say, "Oh, I've got this thing, do you fancy doing that?" and he'll say "no, definitely not." Or he'll say, "Should we fancy doing this?" and I'll say "no, I don't want to do that." So we're very candid with each other and it works for us.

61:20This is the single biggest mistake I made at the start of my relationship. I was saying "yes" too much to things to try and please because you feel like that's what's needed. Whereas I came to learn over the years that in fact, I need to just be honest more regardless of how I think it might impact her.

61:42Because you see, you're saying "yes" when you really want to say "no." And then you've got this sort of underlying resentment. It's much better to just say "no" and suffer the consequences now rather than forever because as you say with the opera, I then have to try and live out this life forever. Exactly! And I think it's important to have your own space and your own friends and do your own thing. You're married, but you're not joined at the hip. Of course there has to be a level of mutual respect there and honesty and trust and all of those things. That goes without saying. But you're not the same person. It is okay to have different interests. My husband is a gym bunny. He's a professional athlete. He's at the gym morning, noon, and night. I could not think of anything I'd rather do less, as you can see! I am not a gym bunny. I don't go to the gym, I've got no desire to go to the gym. He says, "I'm going to the gym," and I'm like, "Yep, bye." And that's it. And I say, "I'm going to a boardroom," and he's like, "Yeah, bye." Like he could think of anything he'd rather do less. But it's—we respect each other's space and views and ideas and we don't have to debate every last thing or every last decision. And everything's okay, we don't sweat about stuff. I don't care if he doesn't pick up his socks. The whole world is not going to stop because he hasn't picked up his socks.

63:09But I'll tell you what really is important in a relationship is understanding when other people are under pressure and being there for them. I don't mean being *in there* with them, but I mean just being there for them and doing the things that really matter to them as opposed to big romantic gestures. I'm not a flower person. I don't particularly like flowers. If someone bought me flowers, it's okay, but I'm not like, "I need flowers." But my husband used to fill my car up with petrol. So it was one less thing I had to worry about. It's small things like that that build a foundation because you know that person's there for you even though it's not a big romantic gesture that the whole world can see, because that's really not very important to me.

63:57Have you ever done the Love Languages test?

63:59No, I don't even know what it is.

64:02So I'm not into this kind of woo-woo thing, but this is actually quite logical. It's a series of questions which try to understand the type of love indicator that you most appreciate. It tends to be the case that busy entrepreneurial people, their love language is—and as is mine—is "acts of service." It's exactly what you described: the tiny little thing to help in a moment. So like helping you pack your luggage when they know you're traveling or just doing that tiny—and for me, acts of service. For me, the most meaningful thing someone can do for me in a relationship is exactly what you said, like "help me with a tiny thing that you know." But is his love language per se the same? Some people's is like touch, words of affirmation, acts of service, or gifts.

64:50I think he'd take any of the above! No, I think for us, the most important thing for us is having a laugh, having lots of family and friends that we enjoy their company with. It's interesting, lots of couples have been married a long time, they need lots of people around them to break up, you know, have lots of friends over, do lots of things, big parties and stuff like that. I'll tell the one thing he does for me every day without fail: he takes the dog for a walk, which is very important, and he picks up a coffee and he brings it straight to me. That's because he knows I cannot start my day without a coffee. That's his big love moment every day.

65:38Is there a need to maintain desire when you're almost three decades into your relationship? Is there things to do, is there a strategy to keep it...?

65:46This is the wrong podcast! That's another 50 Shades of the CEO! I think from our point of view, our kids are grown up, so every night's a date night for us. But I think doing things that are different and unusual. We went on this fantastic tour of Thailand where we went all over, did really crazy wonderful things that were really good fun. We try and do more experience-led things. But equally, we are prepared to go in our tracksuits and go out to the pub. I guess our happy place—if I have to think about a happy place—is Soho Farmhouse. That's a real happy place for us. We tend to try and go one weekend a month and we spend two nights and really don't do anything. Take the dog on long walks, have loads to drink, watch a film, go out to eat lots of food, and just relax.

66:57One thing you've never—I've never seen you talk about from all that I read is mental health, your own mental health. This is kind of a fairly new conversation that's happened in the last 10 years. But have you had experiences with things like anxiety or depression within your own sort of mental health?

67:12No, I haven't. Maybe I have but I just haven't focused on it or haven't really thought about it. I think we all have bad days, don't we? Where we're sort of more snappy than others and days where we're really good. I started HRT recently and I found myself singing in the kitchen the other day, which is something I don't think I've ever done! And I was like, "Christ, this stuff's working!" So, but no, I have this resilience from this, you know, from my very early age to be able to put things to one side and focus on what needs to be done and not really worry too much about it, which is probably both a blessing and a curse.

67:51You describe yourself—I was reading one of your books—do you describe yourself as a feminist?

67:55Definitely.

67:56And what does that mean to you?

67:58To me, it means equality. It doesn't mean wanting more than men, it doesn't mean disliking men, it just means that women's rights should be equal to men's. It has been stigmatized, hasn't it? The word feminism. I feel like it's become a little bit of an anti-man rhetoric, whereas really, I think men should feel like they're feminists too. Definitely. Every man has a mother, has an aunt, has a sister, has a cousin, has a female in his life that should want them to be treated equally. It's a truth that for every pound a man makes, a woman makes 86p, and it's going to take a hundred years to close that gap. And then you get into industries like finance, that gap is much bigger than that. So it's just about equality. It's about not being discriminated against because you're a woman, not being paid less because you're a woman, not being able to earn your worth because you're a woman. That's what it means to me.

68:57As we look forward to the future, you've achieved so, so much in your life and your career. It seems like from what you said earlier on that you weren't ambitious when you were young, it seems like you probably surpassed your childhood early years ambitions already. Is that accurate?

69:12Yeah, I would think so, yeah.

69:14So what's driving you now? What's the thing flipping the duvet and getting you out of bed if you've surpassed all those ambitions?

69:20The toughest thing about being a success is you've got to keep on being a success. There's no point in having a successful year last year to do nothing this year. And what drives that is ambition. I really am disappointed when people are afraid to say they're ambitious because we tend to think ambitious people are ruthless people and that's not the case. Ambition is that spark, it's that fire inside of yourself that won't let you settle for anything other than what you think you deserve and what you want.

69:55I love what I do. I feel so proud that I run West Ham. I feel so proud that I'm in the House of Lords and the work that's important there that has to be done. I love the businesses that I'm involved in, the charities that I'm involved in. I've picked the things I 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 I think a sort of all-rounded life. Whether it's doing *The Apprentice*, something I love is such good fun. On my show, there's a real level of support and we're all good friends. Alan, Claude, and I go on holiday together, go out for dinner. We're firm friends first and foremost. I love what I do and I just want to keep doing it.

70:47Is there a goal or an ambition for you, or is it more of the same? Do you have like a—when you think okay, 10 years from now?

70:54I've never had that. I've never set milestones. 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 had heating and a washing machine. And then I wanted a flat that had heating and a washing machine and a car. So I did have those sort of milestones as opposed to ambitions, but I don't have any of that anymore. There's nothing I want. I don't ever look at people, "Oh, I wish I had that," or "I really want one 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. Some people I know have wardrobes the size of your floor with so 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 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 must get a boat or a yacht." I'd never want anything like that. I love what I do, I'm very happy in my life, I'm very content. I wake up every morning without anxiety. I never feel I bit off more than I can chew. I never think how am I going to see through the day that 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. I'm never worrying about those things that weigh a lot of people down and give them a lot of issues. I'm very happy and very content. I've lived a full life. They say you only live once, but I think if you live it right, once is probably enough.

72:28Amen. I'm reflecting on the 18, 19-year-old Karren that starts at Saatchi and then the person that sits in front of me today. I'm wondering, based on that full life and that experience you've had and all those boardrooms and experiences you've had, what you would say to those young women that are starting out in their career? What would you whisper in their ears on their Monday morning walks today? What would you whisper in terms of navigating their future?

73:04I would say grasp every opportunity, try as hard as you can, never be afraid to fail, and stand up for yourself. Trust me, you do not want to get to 52 and look back on your life and say, "I wish I would have." You will always regret the things you don't do more than the things that you do. So go and do stuff.

73:35Thank you. It's been honestly such a huge honor and pleasure to speak to you because I've had this weird captivated crush on you ever since I saw you in Saudi Arabia because of that strength and that wisdom, your strength and your—and all you've achieved in your life. It's very, very inspiring and interesting to especially the path you've walked in such a male-dominated industry and how you forged your own success at just like 22, 23 years old. That real pivotal moment where you take over a football club. Utterly fascinating. And we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the previous guest writes a question for the next guest.

74:12Oh goodness, you could have told me! I could have thought of something really, really...

74:16No, no, no. This is the question that's been left for you by a certain individual. "When you walk out of here after this beautiful conversation with Stephen, do you feel enriched? And if so, what would you say to the next person you meet on your experience?"

74:36I would say that sometimes it's very difficult to decide to share your story because you open yourself up and people get to know you in a way that maybe you never thought they would. But actually, sharing your story you hope inspires someone else, and it also gives you the opportunity to look back and reflect on your own life because many of us are so busy moving forward that we stop to say, "Oh shit, yeah, I was 19 once. What was I doing when I was living in that horrible apartment with no washing machine and no heating, and when I didn't have a car and how I worried about paying my bills?" It's easy when you're 52 to forget who 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 you can, you know, surprise yourself.

75:36And you don't do many interviews, do you?

75:39I don't. I steer well clear.

75:41Why?

75:42Because I think it's time for other women to speak. I think that, you know, it's like I could take a whole load of non-execs and I could take valuable positions that other women could have. I've had my time. I'm 52, I've been there, I've done all that. I don't want to appear in OK! magazine, I don't want to be posing in a swimsuit or any of those things. None of that appeals to me. I want to lead a calm, incident-free, quiet life, inspiring others in a way I can. I want nothing for myself out of this other than I hope that people have enjoyed it.

76:25I certainly believe they would have. Thank you so much, Karren, for your time today and thank you for your wisdom. You're such a classy, graceful, inspiring human being. And yeah, you've inspired me in so many ways, not just from watching you growing up on *The Apprentice*, but also in Saudi Arabia and again today. So I have a debt of gratitude that I owe you and thank you for being here.

76:46Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

77:12When your cat is acting weirder, or your dog is being louder, your turtle moves slower, hello Ted. Your cat seems thirstier. Whoa, slow down buddy. Or your puppy is acting clumsier. Day or night, if you don't know what's wrong, know where to go. Veg ER for pets. This is Kate. Veg, the better, kinder ER for pets.

77:42When your cat is acting weirder, or your dog is being louder, your turtle moves slower, hello Ted. Your cat seems thirstier. Whoa, slow down buddy. Or your puppy is acting clumsier. Day or night, if you don't know what's wrong, know where to go. Veg ER for pets. This is Kate. Veg, the better, kinder ER for pets.