Welcome back to Being Invested, where we explore the personal stories of the people who make the markets. My guest today is the brilliant and indomitable Diana Noble. We talk about how motivation changes everything, how success can vary at different life stages, how going to Harvard for an executive MBA gave her the confidence to step into leadership, and what it takes to go from investor to business builder. Diana started in the vanguard of PE/VC in the UK and later was at the forefront of international development, taking bold career moves at each stage. She is now Deputy Chair of the Bank of England Court of Directors, a Board member of Wellcome Trust, Non-Exec Director of Brookfield Asset Management, and Chair of The Children’s Society. She also advises leaders of PE firms as the founder of Kirkos Partners. From 2011-17, Diana was CEO of CDC, the UK’s £5bn development finance institution (now called BII) where she led significant transformation and growth. Earlier, she was a partner at Schroder Ventures (now Permira) and founded e-Ventures and Reed Elsevier Ventures. She also led Operations for the Clinton Foundation’s Health Access Initiative, responsible for 43 countries and the scale-up of a global program giving children access to HIV/AIDS care. Diana has a first-class Law degree and was awarded a CBE in 2017. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did!

Thank you for listening to Being Invested and making Series 1 a success. We will be back after a summer break for Series 2 in the autumn – with a timely angle and amazing guests. See you then!

WHAT'S IN STORE

·       “Two lessons I take from that time: one is motivation is everything. If you're motivated, you can do so much. If you're not, you're just going to bumble along. And the second thing is: we all need a little help at different times. And … you can be really lucky to have the right people in your lives to sort of steer you a little bit, not necessarily tell you what to do.”

·       “I wanted to learn as fast as I possibly could and be put in scary situations and test myself. So, it was sink or swim, but I swam.”

·       “Parenting is super, super hard … It's about leaning in, leaning out, being there, always being there, always listening, but holding back a bit on the direct advice.”

·       “I like (investment managers to have) scars. I like failures - when (they) can really talk well about why it happened and why it won't happen again. I think if you hire people who've already got scars, someone else has paid for their learning curve and you're benefiting from it.”

·       “For career changes, make sure you've got the right balance between the things you already know - because that's going to give you confidence on day one, and the things that you don't know - because that's the stretch.”

·       “Flattery (should) play no role in your career decisions. Fine, be flattered, accept it because it's nice, but put it aside. Do not shortcut your due diligence about whether the role is going to be right for you, whether you can succeed.”

·       “I was reasonably well known, I was making lots of money, but no one else was benefiting, really. And that just felt wrong for me.”

LINKS

Unleashed – Frances Frei and Anne Morriss

FAVOURITES

Video: George Saunders speech on Kindness - https://youtu.be/ruJWd_m-LgY?feature=shared

Quote: “The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.” Flannery O’Connor

Comedy: Flight of the Conchords

GRATITUDE

Sound: Alexander Russell, Design: Sophie Hardy, Music: Tom McKean

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.