- Describe yourself in three words.
Impatient, daring, passionate.
- What would you be if you weren't a brand manager?
A forensic anthropologist or biochemist.
- What advice would you give someone starting their marketing career today?
Solid experience on the shop floor or area management will serve you for life. Don't take the 'easy' jobs where there are no problems to fix or tricky projects to deliver; you will hamper the development of your skill set and have less of a chance to prove yourself.
- What attracted you to your current job?
I love family-run, multichannel businesses with a fire in their belly to succeed. The brand has great heritage, great assets and a licence to be daring. What brand junkie wouldn't love the opportunity to bring a new brand look to life for Ann Summers and work on exciting projects like our Selfridges pop-up. It is the perfect match for me.
- What was your finest hour?
A key transitional moment for me was opening the first 22 stores for Hotel Chocolat. I was very young at the time and it cemented in my mind what I love doing.
- If you were a brand what would you be and why?
ASOS took an evolving trend and turned it into an innovative business machine. It is ever-evolving, hungry for success and impatiently driving forward - a challenger brand.
- What is your all-time favourite slogan?
Not a slogan, but a saying: 'Life owes no one a living.' It sums up my approach to life.
- What marketing trend is dominating your job at the moment?
The behaviours of social media are central for us currently. We are taking the two-way conversational aspect of social media offline and replicating it through all of our activities.
- What hobbies do you have?
I love cooking for people; holding dinner parties is my thing.
- What makes you angry?
Apathy. I cannot abide it.
- What is your favourite pub?
The Verulam Arms, St Albans, does an amazing Sunday roast but is a little too handy for my house.
- What's your favourite holiday destination?
A deserted and untamed New Zealand beach. The wilder the better.
- What headline would you most like to read in Marketing?
'Ann Summers opens in Alabama, US'. It is still illegal to sell vibrators in Alabama and carries a prison sentence; guns are totally fine, though. Go figure.