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1. What does a typical Thursday look like for you, starting from when you wake up – to heading to bed?

I read all the papers, and then I call my spies.

2. What was your first job out of school?

The world is my school yard. I haven’t officially graduated from University.

3.  What are the 3 skills you require most to do your job well?

i.       The ability to eat while standing
ii.       Acknowledge the idea that you can be chosen out of an ordinary life to become something astounding
iii.       Understand that everything average is mediocre

4.  What do you love most about your career?

How can a whole generation of intellectuals and philosophers (today’s Simone de Beauvoirs) and activists (our Rebecca Walkers) fail to have registered on our role-model radar? I cherish the opportunity to mentor young women.

5.  Do you have any warnings?

Society has offered some nasty stereotypes towards public relations people, such that PR girls/boys are social queens with large trust funds, have bad cocaine habits, and lust for bejewelled footwear. A real public relations professional aspires to make a difference in her/his community, and is motivated to think like a journalist in order to provide curious story ideas to top media editors.

Celebrity Worth Today – Who can blame the young girls of our generation when the celebrity message is: “Look at me! Believe in me! Want to be me!” and most importantly, “Buy me!” (and the movie I’m in, the shoes I’m wearing, the fragrance I’m promoting, the lifestyle I’m leading) It’s all so shallow. When working with celebrities tie in a cause and leverage their power. Let the little guy benefit, always.

6.  If a woman wanted to get into the business, what are your recommendations of how they should start?

My mentors are spirited, ambitious people – both fictional and real – who strove to cultivate themselves.

Cultivation is the considered act of becoming a better educated, more sophisticated and complex individual. It’s adding more strings to your bow, more matter to your grey. I think Karl Lagerfeld got it right when he described true elegance as “sophistication of the mind.” I learnt this from my father, Doug.

7.  If you could try a different career for the year, what would it be?

To be a mother of four. And then, I would build a house, a modern version of a castle with a moat, where you raise the drawbridge every evening, with an enormous tea room, an enormous work shop, an enormous library, rooms for all my staff and on top of it all a penthouse for me. I’d invite the neighbouring village over for dinner.