One of the UK’s most respected broadcasters, Mariella Frostrup has spent her career at the forefront of the cultural landscape. Most recently, her work has focused on moving the needle on the topic of the menopause; co-founding the Women in Work Summit to help create more equitable, fair and inclusive workforces, and setting up the Menopause Mandate to help women make informed lifestyle choices. Drawing on her decades of trusted expertise and experience, Mariella shares with us how building good foundations – in both your work and wardrobe – is the key to unlocking career success.

ON DRESSING FOR IMPACT:  A lot of the thought that you need to put into what you wear is about best expressing who you want to be and wearing things that both make you look powerful, but also, and more importantly, feel powerful. If you put on a suit that instantly gives you shape, that makes you feel feminine but also strong, then that’s actually doing 25% of the work.

ON THE POWER OF PREPARATION: My go-to step for a big day is to try and get some sleep. I have a hot bath before I go to bed, switch off my phone and my iPad, and I've really embraced the Kindle recently. I do yoga a couple of days of the week and if I didn't, I think I'd be all knotted up like one of those balls of twine. I've become a lot more conscious, in maturity, of trying to be nice to myself and just give myself a little bit of space. So if I have got a really big thing coming up, then I'll try and make sure I don't have 15 small things on the eve of it. Light and shade in the diary, perhaps, is the expression.

‘Think of clothes
as a kind of armour that you step out into the world in.’

ON BUILDING CONFIDENCE AT WORK:  I didn't have confidence when I was younger, I had kind of chutzpah and determination. For me, the most important thing has been developing that degree of confidence. I don't really worry like I used to about how I'm going to look or what I'm going to say or what people are going to think of me. And once those things are off the list, then actually life can be quite sweet. I just think that self-confidence is like a superpower.

ON SETTING CAREER GOALS:
If you do less, you'll often achieve more. That's not about being lazy and actually doing less, it's about not trying so hard to do everything, because things are going to slip by the wayside. But if you set very clear goals, then you actually stand a fighting chance of achieving them.

We sat down with Mariella to chat about the secrets behind her success and how she turned her passion for empowering women into a rewarding career.

‘Self-confidence is like a superpower.’