Shriti Vadera
Following a distinguished career in investment banking, Shriti Vadera became widely respected for her expertise on international debt restructuring and debt relief, and advising governments around the world. She was a member of the Council of Economic Advisers at the Treasury, a government minister, and one of Gordon Brown’s most trusted policy advisers and chief negotiator on financial issues when he was prime minister.
She was a central architect of both the UK’s unprecedented banking rescue package during the international financial crisis in 2008, inspiring governments worldwide to adopt similar strategies, and of the 2009 G20 London Summit, which was described by the IMF as ‘breaking the fall in the global economy’. She is today a member of the House of Lords, on leave of absence since 2011. In 2015 she became chair of Santander UK and in 2020, it was announced that she will become chair of Prudential plc from January 2021 (stepping down as chair of Santander UK in October 2020).
People who are really successful are the ones who are actually doing what they really want to do. They have found what they love and what they have a talent for, they become good at it because of their passion, and they also work very hard at it.
If you define your goals in terms of the things you want to create, the things you want to change and the things that you really want to spend your time on, how can you possibly fail?
When you are truly passionate about something that you are doing, it gets noticed and you are more likely to attract opportunities through being ‘open’. People will offer things to those who they think are open, and simply won’t offer them to people who are not.
I think the most important thing a parent can do is to see their child as an individual person, not as an extension of themselves, which is what I see many parents wanting to do.
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