Fiona is passionate developer of people and high performing teams. She believes this is key to a business' success.
She thrives on learning, developing and challenging herself whether in the work environment or personally.
With a proven track record in the world of fashion, Fiona has had a successful career working at Next, George, Dunelm, and River Island where she built an entirely new brand from scratch.
The bootstrapped entrepreneurial approach is something she is now applying to her new role at Marks and Spencer.
When building a team, Fiona says you absolutely have to know yourself and know what your strengths are and what your opportunities are. She knows she needs a team of people around her who will compliment her skills.
Fiona wants her people to be curious, willing to have a go, make mistakes, and learn from them. Somebody who's going to need every bit of analysis before they move forward is not really going to work in a start-up environment.
In a tiny team personalities that gel together is really important, so Fiona looks for people who don't take themselves too seriously, but take their work seriously.
Fiona says she is not necessarily a generalist. And that was one of the biggest things as a leader she needed to understand about herself. It was a massive step forward for her, recognising what her personal best is, what her skills are, which are about people, product and purpose.
"I'm a very passionate person, and being able to dial those up and not pretend to be something I'm not... Too many people try to emulate a model maybe that isn't authentically them.
"I think what I've hopefully done with the people I've worked with.
"Looking at boards that are very heavily led by men in the past, working out that you haven't got to be like them, you can be yourself and be the very best version of you. I think that's hopefully what I've bought people I've mentored."
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