Introduction
Known to millions as Mrs. Moneypenny from her 16 year Financial Times column, Heather has been an investment banker, executive search entrepreneur, Edinburgh Fringe performer, off Broadway actress, PhD holder, chartered accountant and now Provost of Heriot-Watt University Dubai, overseeing 5,500 students and 600 staff. She qualified as a chartered accountant three weeks before her 60th birthday. She borrowed £1.8 million personally to buy a business, then gifted it to her staff. She co-founded the 30% Club when women held just 12% of FTSE board seats. It is now 45%.
This conversation covers all of it. Why she rejects guilt and regret as wasted emotions. What structural barriers actually stop women from getting ahead and how to dismantle them. Why Dubai’s greatest advantage is not the skyline but the connectivity and free movement of capital and labour that Europe has quietly forgotten. And what she really thinks about the value of a university degree.
Heather also shares the story behind the Taylor Bennett Foundation, built to help Black and minority ethnic graduates break into professional services, funded from her own dividends, and the moment she knew it was working.
Show Notes
0:00 Four failed engagements, a baby to feel anchored, and the unvarnished truth about having children
5:30 The queen of reinvention: why preparation meets opportunity and how Heather built her career in layers
7:11 Her one regret: not qualifying as an accountant sooner and why she finally did it at 59
11:19 Dubai versus Singapore versus Hong Kong: what makes this city different from every other global hub
15:46 Living through the missile attacks, what inflation and food security really look like from the inside, and who has barely noticed
21:18 Structural barriers, the 30% Club, and why three women in a room of ten changes everything
27:01 Borrowing £1.8 million, building Taylor Bennett, and then giving it all away
33:49 Mrs. Moneypenny: 16 years, 800 columns, and the barometer story that almost ended her career
39:25 The Taylor Bennett Foundation and why she measures success by impact not money
43:44 Selling out Edinburgh Fringe and performing off Broadway: the chapter nobody expected
52:22 Heriot-Watt Dubai: why they only teach subjects that lead to jobs and what universities are actually for
59:06 Entrepreneurship, incubators and why she finds young people today far more ambitious than her generation
1:01:24 Why she hates the word networking and what building social capital actually means
1:04:09 Quickfire: the best way into investment banking, what every future leader needs, and what Dubai understands that Europe has forgotten
