Woman's Hour Power List 2014 – Game Changers

Joanna Lumley is best known as the champagne-swilling fashion luvvie Patsy in the television series Absolutely Fabulous. However, alongside acting she is also known for her modelling, charitable work, and as a rights campaigner. She famously campaigned to allow Gurkha veterans to settle in the UK, and now she is backing a sustainable fashion initiative, run in partnership with Oxfam. She is an influential woman in British life, and so in February our panel of judges included her in our Woman's Hour Power List. Joanna joins Jane to talk about sustainable fashion, carving out an influential career as a woman, and her views on women, power and feminism.

Helena Morrissey is the Chief Executive of her own investment company and the founder of the 30 per cent club, and a Woman's Hour Powerlister. She commented on the latest research by the Cranfield School of Management about women on boards.

Dame Sue Ion has spent her life working in engineering. She’s been involved in shaping the UK’s energy policy for the future and been a prominent figure in the UK nuclear industry for decades. Her love for science began at Penwortham Girls’ High School which she shared with her classmate Dame Nancy Rothwell, who is also on the Woman’s Hour Powerlist. Sheila McClennon took Sue Ion back to her old school for the first time in thirty years.

Lucy Heller is the Chief Executive of ARK, an organisation that oversee the running of 18 academies in disadvantaged communities throughout the UK. She is responsible for a model of education which is currently driving current government education policy. Lucy joins Jenni to talk about being nominated for the Woman’s Hour Power List, the ethos that she believes makes her schools so successful and if being a woman in a such senior position is relevant in her day to day work life.

Baroness Sue Campbell has been Chair of UK Sport for ten years now. Also Chair of Youth Sport, a former England netball international, PE teacher and university lecturer, Sue's whole life has been dedicated to sport. She joins Jane to talk about the legacy of London 2012 for women in sport, being nominated for the Woman’s Hour Power List and how her sports training has given her the resilience to deal with some tough challenges in her career.

Nicola Shindler started her career in 1993 at Granada Television and eventually became script editor on crime drama Cracker. She went on to become an Assistant Producer on the BBC’s Our Friends in the North and then in 1998, she founded one of Britain’s foremost independent TV production companies, Red Production. Their output – which has included Queer as Folk, Scott and Bailey and Last Tango in Halifax – has won many awards from BAFTA and the Royal Television Society and Nicola Shindler is now one of the most influential people in TV drama in the UK.

Frances O’Grady took up her post as the General Secretary of the Trade Union Congress last month, the first woman to hold that post in its 145 year history. Last week the panel for the Woman’s Hour Power List ranked her 11th on their list. Frances talks to Samira about her life, career and influences.

Jenni interviews Tessa Ross, Controller of Film and Drama at Channel 4 who is on the Woman's Hour power list.

Home Secretary Theresa May has been named by the Power List judges as the most powerful woman in politics in Britain today. Overall she was only pipped to the number one slot by Her Majesty The Queen. Today Jenni talks to the woman who holds one of the most challenging jobs in government and asks, what does power mean to her?

Heather Rabbatts, the first woman director of the Football Association, joins Jane to talk about her place on the Woman’s Hour power list.