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

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I remember my first away game, and I turned up, and I said, "Oh, 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, uh, I don't think it's you understands. I am the managing director."

Baroness Brady.

She's one of Britain's most successful businesswomen. I'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.

I remember reading a story about your son turning to you on a holiday and saying, "I wish your BlackBerry would blow up."

Working 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.

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

I would say...

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

Hello, Steven. (laughs)

Um, I, I have spent the last couple of days listening to your 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 your story and further into your childhood, there was this, this question which I wasn't able to answer despite all that I, I'd read. And it's, 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, like, stand up for themselves. But where did this deep desire to be free from the control of others, where does it come from?

I don't know. I mean, um, my mother always tells a story that, um, when I was four, that, um, my grandfather was looking after me at home. And, um, my parents had this drinks cabinet, and it was sort of opened down and it had all these, like, bottles, beautiful bottles-

Mm-hmm.

... and little glasses and things. And she tells this story, and I don't remember it at all, that I got a chair and I climbed up and I opened the drinks cabinet, and they had these little sherry glasses and I poured all the little bits of liquid from it, and I started to drink it. And my 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 won't be sick." And then of course drank a half of the-