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go. And what happens to them? Either they have to be motivated enough to work for themselves, to come up with an idea and drive it forward, or they have to start at the absolute bottom and hope they’ll find someone who notices their ability and is prepared to push them forward.

      Companies will need to be more and more open-minded to unearth the right talent. At one point in my career I was offered a job as vice-president of a major IT company in Europe, which sounded great – on paper. Then they asked me to go to America for six months to complete an induction into their company. My response was, ‘Why would you want to turn me into someone who has the same mind-set as everybody else who works for you? Surely it is better to have diversity.’ But they were adamant: that was what they wanted. And, ultimately, it wasn’t me.

      On a more positive note, apprenticeships are a great way forward: you earn while you learn and you learn on the job. It’s also an opportunity for the company, as the apprentices are with you from the outset and they become used to your way of doing things. Then, at the end of the process, they have a practical skill.

      As well as looking past the letters – or lack of them – after your name, sexist stereotyping is another area that should be tackled to make sure the best women can rise to the top. We might think there is no sexism today, but there is. Strikingly, while I have rarely experienced it at work, I get it all the time from the media. If you look on Internet message boards, the abuse is always targeted at my gender: ‘Oh, that Karren Brady, she can motivate the team – she knows how to put a spring in their step, nudge nudge.’ They’d never say anything so personal about a male director, they would simply say he was really bad at his job.

      Without a doubt, the hardest thing about being a female executive in the spotlight is that your gender makes you an easy target. Many women perhaps couldn’t cope with some of the stuff I’ve had thrown at me, and I wouldn’t blame them. Luckily, I have a very thick skin and I hope via this book to help you develop one, too. It can be achieved. You’ll likely need it too, with the guilt the media encourages in working mothers. Newspapers will publish the research that fits their particular viewpoint – you know the headlines, they’re the ones along the lines of ‘Working mothers’ children die young’ or ‘Working mothers’ children are dyslexic/stupid/earn less money.’ Either that, or it’s stories about superwomen who have five children, a million-pound job and do it all perfectly – and, believe me, those stories are always misleading. Still, women measure themselves against them.

      Then there’s still this sense that if you have a career, children and a nanny, you’re some sort of ruthless bitch who doesn’t give a damn about anyone but yourself. That you just drop your kids off whenever it suits you and do as you like. That’s hard for women to cope with. And it just is not true. Working women are weighed down with the guilt, either that they weren’t at sports day or that they missed the board meeting. I want to help women to understand that you can only do what you can do. The balance is different for everyone.

      What can I bring to this debate? Lessons born of hard-won experience. I am independent, driven and motivated. I have taught myself to rely on no one but myself. I don’t pretend to be someone I’m not. I have self-esteem, and I know that I’m capable of achieving anything I put my mind to. Yet, as you’ll read in this book, I never thought it would all turn out as it has. It’s not been easy, and sometimes it’s been punishing. But the result of 25 years’ hard work is that I’m fortunate: I have a career I love.

      And that comes with a warning. I did not wake up at the age of 42 and parachute into this position. I’ve worked hard, sacrificed a lot, and all the time I’ve been in pursuit of success. Yet I can say, with my hand on my heart, that it’s been worth it. That’s why I hope to inspire you not to feel guilty for having a dream, for having ambition and not being afraid to go out there to do something about it. To turn your dream into reality.

      After all, if you don’t champion your career, who will do it for you?

      I want to make things better for my daughter, for you and yours.

      

      Ambitious, driven, determined – that’s how people talk about me, I know, and I guess I they’re right. But to me these words are empty because they say nothing about what really counts, what pushes a person forward. For me, the one thing more than anything else that’s motivated me, the goal I have been striving to reach all my life, is independence. More than money, fame or glamour, I have always been driven by that desire: to live a life where no one could ever tell me what to do. One where only I would have control over me and no one could tell me what to think or how to act.

      I’ve always been this way. I still am. I shudder at the thought of ever having to ask anyone for money to buy a new coat or a lipstick. And it’s this drive, more than any other, which has got me out of bed every day, has made me push myself forward to success.

      So where did the desire for independence, the need for control or, well, sheer bloody-mindedness come from? Writing this book, I’ve had to dwell on how and – a much harder question to answer – why I became who I am. I don’t reflect on such things easily, because I’ve never been an emotional person. That’s an understatement, if ever there was one: I’m logic personified! It’s not quite ‘Call me Spock’ but I’m the sort of person who, when a door shuts, never opens it again. I march forward and never glance back to the path behind me. It’s helped me throughout my career: I don’t waste time second-guessing my decisions and pondering the what-ifs. And up until now, I’ve never really questioned why I’m like this. Yet looking back over my life, as I tried to work out how and where the desire for independence began to make itself felt, I realised I could pinpoint it exactly.

      I was three years old when my mum and nan left me at home one day with my grandfather, while they went shopping. I remember my parents had this elegant drinks cabinet in the lounge. As a toddler, I was fascinated by it. The door folded down and all these beautiful little glasses and different-coloured bottles glinted away in the backlight. I decided to get a chair, climb up and have a good look. Everything looked even better close up. The dainty little glasses (for sherry), the perfect size for me, were so tempting that I started to fill them up with the green, yellow and clear liquids I saw in the bottles: crème de menthe, advocaat and vodka, I know now! Taking little sips and inviting my dolls to do the same, I was having a wonderful time – until my grandfather came into the room and asked what I was doing. Of course, as soon as he twigged, he told me to stop. Three-year-old me instantly replied, ‘This is my house and I’ll do as I want.’ He left me to it. He was married to my grandmother, so perhaps he knew not to pick a losing fight!

      Unsurprisingly, when my mum and nan got home I was rolling drunk and, by all accounts, not much more co-operative. My grandfather got an earful, I was put to bed, and the story passed into family lore for ever more. As my nan used to tell me: ‘You were such a little cow – and you know what? You weren’t sick, not once. Not a drop.’ When you’ve got that streak in you as a toddler, no one’s ever going to be able to tell you what to do when you’re fully grown.

      It wasn’t a one-off, either. A few months later my mum took me to school for the very first time. Picking me up after my first day, she asked the teacher how I had got on. She’d been worried, my mum admitted, as I was very shy. ‘Which one is your daughter?’ the teacher asked.

      ‘Karren Brady,’ said my mother.

      ‘Karren Brady?’ was the incredulous response. ‘Shy? She walked in, pulled a boy off his chair and said, “That’s my seat. Move.” I wouldn’t be worried if I was you!’ It was advice my mother took to heart. In fact, that was probably the last time she worried about me.

      Not that this mind-set always made things easy. I went to boarding school when I was thirteen, and that was tough in many ways, but the hardest thing of all was the lack of freedom or choice. You had to write on a noticeboard when you wanted a bath, booking a slot! Then you had twenty minutes to wash out a bath someone else had just used, bathe, dry and get dressed. It was always a rush, and it’s probably why even now I can’t sit in a bathtub for

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