The last one of the season with Kate Steele. From serving on the Food Counter to Global Communications Director of Microsoft.

So here we are at the end of my very first season and what a guest to finish on!

Kate & I went to school and guides together. My life as a guide was pretty short lived after the guide camp weekend we talk about which was something of a cross between SAS Who Dares Wins and some weird Bear Grylls experiment.

After leaving our comprehensive school in Pudsey, I went onto a YTS scheme.....(remember them?) and Kate went off to the University of Cambridge. We've pretty much not seen each other since and reconnected on social media years later.

At school, she was clever (obvs) but she was also rather creative and had this uncanny knack of persuading the school to allow her to put on her own (rather risqué) productions. So her super successful career in PR and Communications (she is currently Global Communications Director for Microsoft) was a surprise to me as I imagined she would one day become the female Noel Coward or some such. It seems it came as a surprise to Kate too! Armed with her freshly minted Cambridge degree, she headed to the bright lights of London to seek her fortune in journalism and broadcasting and landed in the foodhall at Harrods serving 'ladies who lunch' over the counter. 

Getting involved in the underground arts scene in London allowed Kate to continue to explore her creative side and she tells us about her brief radio career with an unknown Irish bloke called Graham Norton (whatever happened to him?) But it wasn't paying the rent and so she found herself working in a book shop to pay the bills. It was from her work there that she found herself in events and PR. 

What is interesting is that despite her dazzling career success she doesn't describe it as linear, in fact her trajectory has been made up of good and bad decisions along the way. These decisions weren't so much part of a master plan for global success, but more as a way to pay her rent. She feels the modern notion of 'passion' for one's career ambition is somewhat disingenuous and that her most brave and effective career moves have been driven by the desire to be able to afford posh shampoo!

I had to ask Kate about what it was like being a woman from a comprehensive school in West Yorkshire, working in an often male dominated environment surrounded by people from all sorts of varied backgrounds. Anyone who knows Kate knows that it's unlikely she would ever have been fazed by that. We talk about where her self assuredness and confidence came from. She feels her childhood definitely played a part in this. She was never given reason to question whether she had a right to a voice. In an all female household (she grew up with her Mum, Sister and Grandma) her voice, ideas and opinions were considered equal to those of the adults in the house. This is in sharp contrast to mine, where my Dad's favourite motto was "children should be seen and not heard" Perhaps that is part of the secret of success? To stand up and be counted in a world full of expert opinions and loud voices, your right to be there and be heard needs to be intrinsic. 

We also talk about midlife and what that has brought for Kate. I know you'll enjoy this episode.

I am massively grateful to all my friends who have given up their time to appear as guests on my podcast. I have loved every minute of this project. Thank you too to my listeners for your fabulous comments and reviews. It means a lot!