Job: Managing director, Home Corp
- You've got five hours left before the world explodes. What do you do?
Build a time machine.
- What's your best joke?
I have terrible comic timing so I avoid telling jokes.
- What's your biggest fear?
Being seated at the bar in The Ivy.
- When did you last cry and why?
At the gate of a BA flight to Rome. The bastards had offloaded my bag and given my seat to someone else. I thought tears might sway them ... but no chance.
- Who is your hero?
Martha Gellhorn. War journalist and novelist, once married to Ernest Hemingway and reputedly the lover of the war photographer Robert Capa.
- Name one thing about yourself that few people know.
I'm a surprisingly good shot (given how badly co-ordinated I can be) and have a "half blue" for pistol shooting for Cambridge Uni.
- What's the worst thing about your job?
Letting people go - fortunately that doesn't happen too often.
- What do you see when you look in the mirror?
Red hair. Blue eyes.
- Which historical figure do you most identify with and why?
Che Guevara. We were born on the same day.
- If you had a trained monkey, what would you make it do?
Cook, clean, iron and drive me around.
- If your office was burning down, what object would you save and why?
She won't like being referred to as an object - but my PA. Life would be unbearable without her.
- Are you happy?
Mostly - unless I'm flying BA.
- What would you do if you were invisible for the day?
I couldn't resist a good old snoop around Hollywood, particularly the haunts of the Scientology lot.
- What's your most evocative childhood memory?
My aunt putting me on her horse when I was three. I screamed blue murder when they tried to take me off ... it's since become a very expensive "hobby".
- What's your most irritating habit?
My technophobia.
- What belief do you hold most strongly?
Giving opportunities to, and nurturing, young talent. Seeing people grow is my greatest source of satisfaction at work.
- What do you wear in bed?
Vertiver, by Jo Malone.