July 8, 2025 • 54 mins
In this inspiring conversation, Suzanne Heywood now the COO of one of Europe’s largest holding companies, opens up about her unbelievable childhood journey.
When Suzanne Heywood was seven, her father announced their family would sail around the world. What was supposed to be a three-year adventure following Captain Cook's route turned into a ten-year struggle for survival and Suzanne's future.
Suzanne recounts her childhood on a cramped sailboat, facing danger and lacking formal education. After a near-fatal storm in the Indian Ocean, she pursued correspondence courses, seeing education as her escape and hope for a better future.
At sixteen, left in New Zealand while her parents sailed on, Suzanne took control—writing to elite universities, picking kiwi fruit to fund her passage to England, and eventually reaching Oxford.
Now the COO of Exor, a board member of major companies, and a mother of three, Suzanne's journey from sea isolation to leadership in Europe is a testament to resilience and determination. Her memoir, Wavewalker, challenges her parents' narrative and explores the power of reclaiming one’s life.
In addition to 'Wavewalker,' Suzanne has authored a bestselling biography of her late husband, Jeremy Heywood, who served under various UK Prime Ministers. Titled 'What Does Jeremy Think?', this book narrates his story and reflects a question often asked in Whitehall.
The World Woman Foundation has awarded Suzanne the prestigious World Woman Hero Award, acknowledging her efforts to expand access to education and enhance global equality. This accolade is part of the World Woman Davos Agenda event, which takes place concurrently with the World Economic Forum.
Suzanne Heywood chairs CNH Industrial, Iveco Group, and Shang Xia, and sits on the boards of The Economist and Christian Louboutin.
Episode Highlights
- Growing up on a boat for ten years, without formal schooling
- Being left in New Zealand at 16, and finding the courage to apply to universities around the world
- How she made it to Oxford without formal education—and the culture shock that followed
- Why she wrote Wavewalker, and what it means to finally tell her own story
- The leadership skills her unusual upbringing gave her—and how they shape her work today
Guest link:
suzanneheywood.com
-Links-
https://www.svetkapopov.com/
https://www.instagram.com/svetka_popov/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey friends, welcome to the Ones who Dared podcast,
where stories of courage areelevated.
I'm your host, vekka, and everyother week you'll hear
interviews from inspiring people.
My hope is that you will leaveencouraged.
I'm so glad you're here.
Today's guest has lived a lifethat reads like an epic novel,
(00:28):
except it's all true.
When Suzanne Haywood was justseven years old, she set sail
with her family on what wasmeant to be a three-year journey
around the world.
Instead, she spent a decade atsea, surviving a shipwreck in
the Indian Ocean and fightingfor an education while living on
a sailboat.
Suzanne's memoir Waywalkerbecame an international
(00:48):
bestseller, and it's easy to seewhy Her story is as intense as
it is inspiring.
But her journey didn't stopthere.
She went on to study at Oxfordand earn a PhD from Cambridge,
before rising through the ranksof the UK Treasury and McKinsey
to now serve as a COO of Exor,one of Europe's largest holding
(01:09):
companies.
She also chairs major globalboards and sits on the Economist
Board.
In this episode, suzanne shareswhat it's like to survive a
shipwreck, push againstimpossible odds for education
and lead some of the mostpowerful boardrooms in the world
.
This is more than just a storyof survival.
It's a story of reinvention,resilience and redefining what's
(01:30):
possible.
I cannot wait to introduce youto Suzanne Haywood, an
extraordinary woman.
Suzanne Haywood, welcome to theOnce you Dare podcast.
It is such an honor to have youall the way from England.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Thank you so much.
Well, it's a huge honor to behere as well.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Your story is quite remarkable and your book that
just came out, waywalker, wasreally hard to put down.
It is a page turner for sure,well written, I'm sure, a memoir
that was hard to relive as youwrote it, and your story begins
in a seemingly ordinarychildhood a school, a home and
(02:08):
the rhythm of a familiar life.
Then came a promise of anexciting voyage, an adventure
that most children, I feel like,only read in books.
Can you take us back to themoment before Waywalkers set
sail, and what did life looklike?
And how did your dad presentthis three year journey to you
and why was this such animportant voyage for him?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
So you're right, my childhood felt incredibly normal
.
I was going to school with myyounger brother, who was a year
younger.
We had a dog, a water spanielcalled Rusty.
I had my favorite toys,particularly a doll's house that
my father had bought secondhandand repainted for me.
I had my best friend, Sarah.
You know all the normal partsof a childhood that many, many
(02:55):
people will relate to.
And then suddenly my father satus down and said I want to sail
around the world.
And his rationale for sailingaround the world was that he
wanted to follow Captain Cookaround the world.
And I should explain that mymaiden name is Cook, although
I've since discovered that we'renot actually related to Captain
(03:17):
Cook, which maybe is a firstinkling of how this story starts
to unravel.
But, as presented to me, thiswas all about Captain Cook.
Captain Cook was a big hero ofmy father's, he said, and he
wanted to do something tocommemorate the 200th
anniversary of Captain Cook'sthird voyage around the world,
(03:37):
and we would set sail on exactlythe same date as Captain Cook.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Wow.
And so you set sail.
And what were some of theemotions that you experienced
when this was presented to you?
Because I'm sure there was amix of excitement, but also
uncertainty about what is tocome.
What was going through yourmind as this was presented to
you?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
As you say, it was very mixed, because I had my dog
and my doll's house and my bestfriend and I actually loved
going to school.
I was quite a studious littlegirl, um, and that comes up and
comes back, uh, later as well.
On the other hand, I adoredlike many little girls do.
I adored my father.
I thought he could.
(04:23):
You know, he was thisincredible adventurer who could
do anything, and if he wanted meto go on this adventure with
him, of course I was going to goon this adventure with him and
he promised me it was going tobe three years and then we would
come back and everything wouldgo back to normal.
I would go back to school,rusty would be waiting for me,
(04:45):
my friends would be waiting forme.
So this was an adventure.
I would see the world and thenI would come back and my life
would go back to normal.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
At this point you were seven years old, right, and
your adventure was went fromthree years to 10 years, so you
started sailing at seven andreally the end was when you were
17.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
at what point did you sense that sense that, um, this
wasn't a thrilling adventureafter all, but something
different and even dangerous sothe first indication came almost
immediately when we went to sea, because it became very
apparent that my mother becamevery seasick and actually hated
(05:29):
sailing and withdrew into hercabin for the first few days at
sea.
So I guess that was my firstindication, because my brother
and I and I was seven and he wassix were left on our own pretty
much for several days, we maydo eating a fruitcake that had
been given to us before we setsail.
But then there were wonderfulmoments.
(05:50):
We saw whales and dolphins andflying fish and sunsets and
stars and all of those sorts ofthings.
But it all started to turn muchdarker when we set off from
South Africa to cross theSouthern Indian Ocean.
And I should explain that byfollowing Captain Cook's third
voyage we were actually sailingthe wrong way around the world.
(06:11):
So most people who sail aroundthe world, they sail from west
to east, and if you sail fromwest to east you can go around
the world near the equator,through the Panama Canal,
through the Suez Canal, andyou've pretty much got the wind
behind you.
But we were following CaptainCook and he went the other way
and that meant going very, veryfar south to catch the wind.
(06:33):
So we'd covered, we'd goneacross the southern Atlantic
Ocean, which was very rough andvery unpleasant voyage, and then
we crossed the southern IndianOcean and on that voyage we were
hit by an enormous wave myfather later estimated it to be
90 foot high, about as high asour main mast and half as high
(06:54):
again crashed through the middleof the deck, out through the
side of the boat, knocked theboat onto her side, knocked my
father overboard.
He got flung back on deck, butI was the most seriously injured
.
I ended up with a fracturedskull, broken nose and a kind of
huge blood clot on my brain.
And we were very lucky to finda tiny atoll in the middle of
(07:17):
the ocean.
Had we not found that atoll, wealmost certainly would have
sunk because the boat was sobadly damaged, we wouldn't have
made it all the way to Australia.
And on that atoll was a verysmall French base, um which,
where there was a doctor and heoperated on me.
So I ended up having sevenoperations on my head, but
(07:38):
unfortunately with no anesthetic.
Wow, so that was the point Imean mean.
At that point I knew I'd learneda number of things.
I'd learned that the sea was adangerous friend.
It could be a very beautifulfriend, but it could be a very
dangerous friend.
And I never lost that fear.
(07:59):
I learned that my father wasnot invincible, despite what
he'd said, and our boat was notinvincible either.
And I'd also learned that I wasoften on my own.
So when I went through thoseoperations on Arle Amsterdam, I
had to do them on my own.
My mother refused to come inbecause she didn't like the
(08:20):
sight of blood, so thoseoperations were all done on my
own scientific blood.
So so those operations were alldone on my own, and that really
changed the whole voyage for me, because from then on I was
quite a scared little girl and Iwas much more alone than I'd
been when we set off yeah, wow,that.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
I just can't imagine what you must have felt in the
ship and also after the wreckage, and it was days after your
injury correct the swelling inthe ship.
And also after the wreckage,and it was days after your
injury correct the swelling inthe brain that was going on,
which we know how dangerous thatis if we don't take care of
that as soon as possible.
So it was days before youreached an island for the
multiple operations and to bealone in such a crucial time of
(09:01):
physical pain but also justuncertainty and all of this
going on, that must have beenreally, really hard.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
It was.
It definitely was.
And what's been amazingactually about writing the book
is that various people from mypast have been coming forward.
And very recently, literally inthe last two weeks, uh, I was
approached by somebody calledPierre, who's mentioned in the
book, um, and he was actually onour Amsterdam and he was in the
(09:32):
room when those operations tookplace.
And every time I meet somebodyelse from my past who comes
forward, I tried to find as manypeople as I could when I was
writing, obviously, but somepeople I was unable to find, so
some of them are now finding me.
I mean, he told me how seriousthis operation was.
Actually, not only was the kindof pressure on my brain, but I
(09:55):
was liable to lose my eye aswell because of the extent of
the damage.
So that was really when thevoyage changed for me, and I
didn't think it ever really wentback to what it was.
And the first part of the book,I think, is a much more kind of
innocent part of just enjoyingthe adventure of being at sea.
(10:18):
Then, after this, you know,really, my view of it changes
quite a lot, even though I'mstill relatively young.
Yeah, and yeah, it is veryclear because in changes quite
quite a lot, even though I'mstill relatively young.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Yeah, and yeah it's.
It is very clear because in thebeginning you write about it,
you could see that your dad isyour hero in some ways and he's
this invincible character whojust does incredible things.
He's got all these adventuresand, you know, it seems like you
have a really good relationshipwith him, have a really good
relationship with him, and thenin that point, when you have
that shipwreck, there's aReader's Digest as well that
(10:48):
writes about that I'm okay todie if we die together, which is
something that your brothersaid in the middle of that
really difficult period.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
No-transcript that's right.
I mean, certainly, my brotherand I, and we were lying in
these bunks in a cabin, uh, we,we both thought we were going to
die, um, and I don't remembermy brother ever saying that
phrase.
I mean, it's quite possibleI've forgotten it because I was
very young, but my father, asyou say, wrote this article and
(11:32):
the article, and this is one ofthe reasons why I wanted to
write the book.
You know, the article is verymuch written from the
perspective of the hero in thestory you know, I'm the captain
of the boat and I fight againstthe storm and I kind of managed
to find the island, and you know, and all that is right I mean
(11:54):
he but there's a very differentstory to be told.
If you're the little girl whowas standing down below when the
wave hit and you're seriouslyinjured Because I never chose to
be there, and certainly mybrother may have said that he
was not afraid to die, but I wasvery afraid to die.
I didn't want to die, I wantedto live my life, um, and I
(12:18):
wasn't there through a choice ofmy own.
Uh, this was like a father'schoice, to kind of put us there.
So one of the reasons forwriting the book was I wanted to
tell the story through my eyes,and a lot of it is a less about
you know what version of thestory is correct or not correct,
but it's important to kind ofsee how a story looks through
(12:41):
somebody else's eyes.
And when parents take childrenon an adventure, particularly an
adventure that puts their livesat risk and takes them away
from schooling and friendshipsand all the sorts of normal
things that a child could have,that's a very different decision
that they're making for a childthan a decision that they're
making for themselves, and that,I think, is something that you
(13:04):
know often gets overlooked whenwe admire people who do these
kind of crazy adventures.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Yeah, because from another perspective, your dad
did look like a hero.
He went on this adventure andhe accomplished all these things
.
And it was like when you askedOwen in the book of, why are we
encountering so many storms?
And he said because you guysare going the wrong way, you're
going towards the wind or end.
And you said but if it'sachievable, it would be quite
(13:33):
the achievement.
So that in itself was somethingthat you could tell was a big
drive for your dad.
I am really in awe of your driveto get an education.
So you were denied the propereducation during those very
formative years, yet you endedup with a PhD from Oxford.
I'm curious to what fueled yourinner drive to learn against
(13:57):
all the odds that were againstyou, especially that you didn't
live in the time that we lived,where you could have access to
internet, to correspondence.
It was very different being inthe middle of nowhere, and take
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Speaker 2 (14:50):
So what happened after the shipwreck is, we
repaired the boat, which tookabout a year year, and then we
sailed all the way up to Hawaii.
And that should have been wherethe voyage ended, because in
Hawaii Captain Cook was killedand we were due to come back
through the Panama Canal andback to the UK and, as my father
had promised at the beginning,my life was going to go back to
normal.
But what happened was we had afamily vote and I voted to come
(15:13):
back, as did my brother, and myparents voted to keep sailing.
And I voted to come backbecause by that point I was
desperate for an education.
I'm now 12 years old.
I'm not getting any education,but also I don't have any
friends.
I'm living on a boat and myrelationship, in particular with
(15:34):
my mother, is deteriorating.
Boat and my relationship, inparticular with my mother is
deteriorating.
You know, I always stayedfriends with my father, although
my father's obsession was wassailing.
But I always stayed friendswith my father.
But my relationship with mymother became increasingly
difficult.
So I wanted to come home.
I wanted to come home to beable to go to school and have
friends and see Rusty and findthe doll's house and everything
(15:54):
else.
I had a full electrificationplan for the doll's house, by
the way that I'd kind of writtenup, but that's a side story
anyway.
But my dad overrode the boat andhe said no, I'm the captain, I
decide and we're going to keepsailing.
So we did and I realized that Ihad no way to escape from this
boat.
I didn't have a passport.
(16:15):
I didn't have a passport, Ididn't have any money, I had no
education, I was uneducated.
I was increasingly expected towork on the boat because we had
no money as a family and so whatwe were doing is taking paying
crew on board and effectivelyturning the boat into a hotel to
try and earn money to keepsailing.
So this was not a glamoroustrip for anyone kind of
(16:36):
listening who was thinking thisis a very kind of.
It was not.
We were often hungry, the boatwas becoming increasingly
disheveled over time and we onlyhad one head working toilet on
the boat.
So you know, by this point westart to have six, seven, eight
crew, eight crew on board,mainly men, and you're a teenage
(16:56):
girl.
So that's kind of tricky.
I'm sharing my cabin with kindof crew, so all of the kind of
difficulties arising from thatand I decide I have to escape or
I'm going to spend my life inthis situation.
I'm going to be stuck in boatyards, stuck on this boat with
my parents, with no friends, forthe whole of my life.
(17:22):
And I discovered that I, one wayor another, I can educate
myself.
It's not easy, but if I managedto register myself on a
correspondence course and thenif I could post off the lessons
when we got to a port, and if Icould get my father to tell me
where we were going next whichhe wouldn't always tell me, but
if I could get him to tell mewhere we were going next which
he wouldn't always tell me, butif I could get him to tell me
where we were going to go next,I could get them to send the
lessons back, and at least someof them I got back.
And then if I could findmoments to study when I wasn't
(17:44):
expected to work on the boat andI'd often do that by hiding
from my mother I could.
I could study, I could work myway through these textbooks.
And your question is where do Ifind the motivation?
And it's a really difficultquestion because I don't really
quite know now, as an adultlooking back.
But I think there were twothings.
One is I thought it was alifeline.
(18:06):
I didn't know if it would work,but I thought it was a lifeline
and it was the only one that Ihad.
And the second thing was thatin a world where I could control
nothing I couldn't even controlwhere we were going we once
sailed past the only part ofAustralia where I had friends,
because we'd stopped there for alittle while.
At one point, uh, malula Bar andI remember that the local radio
(18:31):
station came on, the, the kindof the, the kind of top, you
know the kind of top 10 radiostation came on.
It was the local Malula Barradio station and all of my
friends were there and we weregoing past and I was begging my
father in tears can we just stop?
Can we just stop for theweekend?
I haven't seen my friends foralmost a year and you know, just
the weekend I'll see them.
(18:51):
And he said no, no, no, no,we're too busy, we've got to
keep going.
And the radio station came onand I had it for about two hours
and then the radio station wentaway and it was another year
before I saw my friends again.
And that was the world I wasliving in.
I mean effectively kind of kepthostage on this boat.
So that's what drove me.
(19:11):
I thought if I get an educationI can get, eventually get
control of my life.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Yeah, and then the next part, too, is tell us about
a time where you and yourbrother were left in New Zealand
.
Where you were there.
He was there to get aneducation.
You were assigned to watch overhim per se, without your
parents being there.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Well, unfortunately, in my world there was quite a
lot of gender difference on theboat.
So, uh, my brother, my father,once said to me you know, if I
could only afford one of you toget an education, it will have
to be your brother, because he'sa boy and he'll have to grow up
and look after a family, whichI remember being shocked by as a
(19:53):
, as a child, even though thatsort of view was a bit more
prevalent then but I was stillshocked by that and I absolutely
disagreed with it.
Uh, there was nothing I coulddo.
My father was not the sort ofman that you could argue with
right or reason with.
You absolutely couldn't, but Icompletely disagreed with him.
Um, and then on the boat, itwas very gendered.
(20:15):
My brother was allowed to workon deck.
In fact, he had the only set ofsafety equipment child size
that would enable you to work ondeck.
I wasn't given one because Iwas expected to cook and clean
down below because I was a girl.
So my parents decided to keepsailing, but they were worried
about my brother's education, sothey left the two of us in New
Zealand me, as you say, to lookafter him and him to go to
(20:38):
school.
Uh, we at the time were seven,uh, 15 and 16.
I was 16, he was 15, we turned17 and 16.
While we were there, I kept ondoing my correspondence, whilst
looking after him, whilstcooking and cleaning for him,
which I was expected to do, andI became, well, first of all,
ever more determined.
I was going to kind of getmyself out of this and escape,
(21:02):
but also and when you read thebook, that's almost the most
difficult chapters of the book,because the wave was a very
physically dangerous moment whenI almost died.
I now understand, or certainlywas kind of permanently, just
could have been permanentlydisabled.
But New Zealand was where I gotreally very depressed because I
(21:23):
was left on my own as a 16 yearold, didn't know any adults in
New Zealand, apart from oneperson who I knew in Auckland,
but she was too far away tovisit and she never came to kind
of visit me until right at theend, the last two weeks where I
went up to Auckland to sit myexams.
So I was just, yeah, and I justfelt completely out of my depth.
(21:43):
I I just couldn't cope withbeing there.
But eventually I pulled myselftogether one way or another.
I kind of pulled myselftogether and thought I've just
got to kind of get through this.
You know I can't change thecircumstance that I'm in, so
I've just got to kind of getthrough this.
You know I can't change thecircumstance that I'm in, so
I've just got to work my waythrough it.
And I did and eventually wentup to Auckland, took those exams
(22:04):
and managed to get myself akind of interview at university
and that was a kind of door intoa very different life.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yeah, and I just think it's so incredible that
you did manage to get aninterview at Oxford, and how did
you come about getting thatinterview, because I'm sure that
was not an easy feat.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
It's very funny.
I look back now and I stilldon't quite understand how it
happened.
I mean, so what I did sittingin this hut because my parents
didn't really rent a properhouse for us, what I did sitting
in this hut because my parentsdidn't really rent a proper
house for us, we were living inthis hut, uh, about an hour out
of the nearest, outside of thenearest town, rotorua, and so I
was sitting in this hut thinkingI'm going to go to university,
I'm going to see if I canpossibly go to university.
(22:50):
That's what I'm going to do.
And I should say, nobody in myfamily had been to university
before and I wasn't going to aschool.
So I didn't have anyone toadvise me.
But I thought, okay, so I'mgoing to write to every
university I've heard of in theworld.
But I didn't have the addresses, so I made them up.
So I wrote to Oxford University, oxford, england, and I wrote
(23:12):
to Auckland University, auckland, new Zealand, and Harvard
University, harvard, america,and so on and so on.
You can see from this list I waswriting to quite a lot of the
very elite universities which isnot because I thought I was
elite, but they were the onlyones I knew, because somehow,
even on a boat in the SouthPacific, you've heard of these
(23:33):
universities Sydney University,sydney, australia I wrote to
London University, london,england, which doesn't really
exist, so I don't know wherethat one went.
Anyway, what then happened ismost of them wrote back and said
, no, well, quite a lot neverwrote back at all.
Harvard never wrote back and Inow realize that Harvard is not
in Harvard, so that was a bitunfortunate.
Maybe they never got my letter.
(23:54):
Um, a lot of them wrote backand said, no, you're just too
strange, you don't have kind ofproper qualifications, we won't
consider you.
But incredibly, oxford wroteback and said okay, write us a
couple of essays and we'll thinkabout it.
And then, working with mycorrespondence teacher, who was
amazing, he and I came up with acouple of topics and we were
(24:16):
deliberately trying to picktopics which were a bit.
He and I came up with a coupleof topics and we were
deliberately trying to picktopics which were a bit unusual.
And I wrote these two essaysand he gave me some advice on
them and I sent them to Oxford.
And then Oxford wrote back andsaid okay, so you can either sit
an exam or you can come for theinterview.
And I thought I have no chancesitting an exam because I've
never really been to schoolproperly and I'm trying to do
(24:39):
six subjects through theAustralian system and that, you
know, folks in the UK only dothree.
So how can I compete?
So I thought I've got to get toEngland and do an interview.
That's my only chance.
My only chance is I've got toget to England.
So then I went out picking kiwifruit, which was, I mean, it's
quite difficult to get a jobbecause I didn't have a proper
(25:00):
visa.
In fact New Zealand kept ontrying to deport me, so I didn't
have the sort of visa we couldgo and get a job.
So the thing with fruit pickingis you can.
Often they don't check.
So I was able to go and do kiwifruit picking horrible job
owned enough money with a smallcontribution from my father to
get a very convoluted ticket allthe way back to the UK, got on
(25:22):
a plane and came back on my own,which was also incredibly
frightening because I was on myown coming back.
I'd never been back to Englandfor a decade.
I left when I was seven, Ididn't know what I was going to
find at the other end.
I only had a one-way ticket andI didn't have a plan B.
There was no plan B.
Plan A was getting to Oxford.
(25:45):
Yes, plan B was to be workedout at a later point, but
couldn't really contemplate whatplan B was going to be.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Wow, that's incredible.
And just getting on that planeby yourself, going for it, and I
think sometimes, when you don'thave a plan B, you put all the
eggs into that one basket, right, and you're just.
This is it?
This is all I got.
I'm going to give it 100% and110% of everything in order to
make it happen.
(26:14):
And I just I just look at yourstory and there's so much
resilience, so much courage thatit took for you to stand up for
yourself and to say, hey, thisis what I want, I'm not going to
be controlled by mycircumstances, which is really
hard to do when so much of it isoutside of your control.
And then you do get into Oxfordwhich is a miracle in itself,
(26:37):
right Without having the formaleducation.
They give you a shot.
And I'm curious too, how, aftersuch an unconventional
childhood, how did you adjust tothe institutional life, the
everyday life at Oxford and thengoing on to McKinsey?
How was that for you, thattransition?
Because I'm sure it was not atypical childhood that you had,
(26:59):
so you weren't socialized likethe rest of the kids.
It's really interesting.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
So I thought when I got into Oxford which was just
an incredible, I mean I couldn't.
I mean I remember the letterwent to my aunt and I was in
London at the time because Iwent down to London to try and
earn some money because I had nomoney letter has arrived and
(27:27):
she opened it up and she saidwell, I think there must be some
mistake, because they made youan offer, a 2e offer, which is
like the lowest grade.
They don't do that.
They must be a must be the same.
And it wasn't a mistake.
They had just taken a bet on me.
I think they just decided okay,we just need to make a bet.
You know we're either going tosay no or we're going to say yes
, and that's just it and we'llsee what happens.
(27:47):
So I thought when I went toOxford, this was going to be
socially amazing after 10 yearsof being desperate for
friendships.
You know, desperate to do allthe things that kids normally do
.
You know, go to parties, hangout, you know, go to the pub I,
I don't know all the things thatyou know most people would see
as utterly trivial.
(28:07):
I was desperate to go and doand then I was petrified about
the academics.
I thought, you know, they'velet me in but they really don't
understand the gaps that I knoware in my education.
I never learned my times tables.
I have no foreign language.
I hadn't learned chemistry,which was a prerequisite for my
course.
(28:27):
I'd been let in to studyzoology, so I was petrified
about the academics.
When I got there, the oppositehappened, because what I found
was, academically, I had to workhard.
But the one thing I had learnedon that boat was how to work
hard.
I knew how to be disciplinedabout teaching myself and
suddenly I had access to bedisciplined about teaching
myself and suddenly I had accessto libraries and lectures and
(28:50):
books.
It was incredible.
And so, taking thatdetermination and an application
that I already had and suddenlyhaving resources available to
me, that turned out to be okay.
I just worked and said,socially it was a disaster.
It was really really much worsethan I expected and looking
(29:13):
back I realize that it was.
It was both me and it was theother.
You know, it was the otherstudents.
It was a problem for all of usbecause and probably more me
than them by by some I had verylimited social skills and they
had no experience of somebodywho was so far out of the norm,
(29:33):
because they were also veryyoung, you know, and they'd only
encountered people who were,you know, within a certain kind
of bound of normality and we hadnothing in common to talk about
.
I didn't know how to do smalltalk.
They had no interest in sailingboats or coups in Fiji or Wales
or all these other things.
(29:54):
So I was very isolated to startwith.
And then it was made moredifficult by the fact that my
parents, true to form,completely disowned me in my
second term at Oxford.
So I was poverty stricken and Ididn't qualify for a grant
because I'd been overseas for solong.
So it was really very difficult.
(30:14):
But it then ended much in amuch, much happier place because
after about a year I startedkind of figuring out the social
skills.
I started meeting friends.
I eventually went to my collegeand explained to them that I was
poverty stricken.
I put it off for a very longtime because I thought Oxford
would throw me out if theyrealized I was poverty stricken.
(30:35):
And in fact they didn't.
Uh, what they did was they saidof course, we'll help you.
You should have come and toldus ages ago, you know, sitting
in your room worrying about howyou were going to eat.
I mean how ridiculous.
You should have come and toldus.
But of course you know.
Uh, so I had some money.
Eventually I got a grant, infact.
In fact, eventually I won thebattle and got a grant.
(30:55):
Um, I started to make friends.
I went on to Cambridge, did myPhD, by which point you know I'm
actually quite normal.
You know, at leastsuperficially, you know I'm, I
have a normal grant, I havefriends, I'm having.
You know, at leastsuperficially, you know I'm, I
have a normal run, I havefriends, I'm having.
You know I'm having a fun time.
And I put a lot of whathappened on the boat behind me
and then I went on from thereinto the UK government and then
(31:16):
from there to McKinsey and thenfrom there to where I am now,
where I kind of work, you knowrunning, helping to kind of run
different companies.
And it was only when I cameback to read, to write
Wavewalker that I really had toconfront all of it.
And the real shock, when I satdown to write it and I opened my
(31:38):
diaries in particular, and mymother's diaries, is having to
confront what it really was,because I'd really, you know,
left it unpacked for such a longtime.
It was incredibly cathartic todo that, but very difficult to
do it.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Yeah, I'm sure it was hard to revisit some of those
parts and seeing actually howbecause I think when you're
living in the moment we tend tominimize right, because you're
in survival mode, you're tryingto make ends meet and figure out
how to deal with the situationYou're not thinking, wow, this
was actually really out ofcharacter for a child to be in
this position, and so on and soforth and then looking back and
(32:19):
reading your mom's diary evenwhen she describes how, when you
had that accident in your headand how in pain you were and how
swollen all the things were,was it was pretty bad, it was
not.
Um, yeah, I think that musthave been super hard for you to
go back to that it was.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
It was very hard and, and the way in which my parents
dealt with it is, they alwayshad their version of the story
and their version of the storywas my father was a hero and we
had a fantastic adventure and itall worked out well anyway, and
that was it they.
You were not allowed tochallenge that version of the
(32:59):
story and of course there'selements of that version which
are correct, um, but there's alot that's not said in that and
I needed to go back and uncoverthat and to kind of face into
what really happened and reallydig into it.
Um, and there's all sorts ofkind of phrases that I now
understand.
I mean, there was a lot of whatwe now call kind of gaslighting
(33:20):
, where stuff would happen andthen my parents would pretend it
hadn't happened.
You know, we once almost wentto ground near Melbourne in
Australia and I remember I Ikind of um, I didn't write about
it in my diary, but one of thecrew on board wrote about it in
his diary, so I remembered itand he wrote about it in his
diary.
It's missing from my father'slogbooks and my father denied
(33:44):
that it happened.
And so the other really strangething about a child growing up
in that environment is you beginto become quite dislocated from
reality because you don't knowwhat's true and what's not true
so what was really, reallyhelpful about writing the book
for me personally is I was ableto get all the facts clear.
(34:04):
I've never been allowed todiscuss the wave.
It was a banned topic onWaveWalker because it would
upset my mother.
So it was the first time in mylife I'd ever looked back at the
wave and tried to figure outwhat happened.
How badly had I been injured?
I had nightmares about it formany years afterwards but I
(34:24):
didn't know the facts of it.
About it for many yearsafterwards, but I didn't know
the facts of it.
So I'm really glad that I didit and, of course, even happier
that so many people have foundit such an interesting thing to
read.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Yeah, I think this book reminds me of.
I feel like it's a marriagebetween the story Wild and
Educated.
I just think it's remarkabletoo, because today you lead some
of the Europe's most powerfulcompanies and I'm curious to
what values have guided yourleadership today.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
So I actually think that, having escaped from
WaveWalker and I do think I wasvery lucky to escape from
WaveWalker, because I would notrecommend this childhood to
anybody, but I do think I dothink that, having escaped from
it, it has given me somestrengths which I do value, and
one of them and it's a termthat's kind of massively
(35:17):
overused it is the resilientresilience term.
So when I face a challenge inmy life and sadly, you know,
like many of us, I've faced alot of challenges, including
losing my husband, who passedaway in 2018.
I'm able to keep myself calmbecause of that experience that
(35:37):
I went through as a child, andbecause I can keep myself calm,
I can then be thoughtful abouthow I behave in order to kind of
help the people around me.
So I had to step in and be theCEO of one of the big companies
that we look after Case NewHolland, that makes agriculture
equipment through the COVIDcrisis and that ability to stay
(36:00):
calm and to listen to peoplearound me and to have a kind of
relatively low ego, um, it'sreally, really important,
because what I found is I oftendon't know the answer to
something, but almost inevitablythere's somebody there who does
, but somebody has to make adecision and hopefully the
(36:22):
person who makes a decision isgoing to be calm enough and
thoughtful enough to listen andthen, when they have as many
facts as they can reasonably getand, by the way, you can't
normally get as many facts asyou might like they can make a
decision.
So I think that resilience,that ability to be calm in a
crisis and the ability to teachmyself I I still teach myself.
(36:44):
I still I love teaching myself.
I think that's something I kindof learned and learned to kind
of enjoy as a child.
So I now teach myself all sortsof stuff useful stuff, not
useful stuff.
I just have a kind of I enjoyeducating myself.
I think I do just somehowthat's a habit.
Those things are real strengthsthat came out of my childhood
and I'm really thankful forthose.
(37:06):
I think I paid far too highercosts for them, but they're
still there as things that Ivalue in myself yeah, that's
really remarkable.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
What is your perspective on the importance of
women in executive leadershipand how can more of us break
into that space?
Speaker 2 (37:24):
so I think it's really important.
I mean, I'm a I'm verypassionate about trying to get
leadership to represent thebiggest breadth of different
views and backgrounds andperspectives as possible,
because and for me, it's notjust about gender and it's not
just about kind of racialbackground, it's as much about
(37:47):
kind of educational backgroundand social background.
And the reason why it'simportant is that my observation
throughout my career is thatwhen you get a group of people
who bring different perspectives, they tend to come to a much
more interesting decision,because otherwise you have an
echo chamber.
You know you have person numberone who you know, maybe the same
gender as everybody echochamber.
You know, you have personnumber one who you know, maybe
(38:09):
the same gender as everybodyelse, but you know comes from
the same schooling system aseverybody else and has had the
same life experiences assomebody else.
They say we should do this andeverybody says, well, that's a
great idea, right?
You get a bunch of people whocome from different places and
have done different things and,as you say, different genders,
all sorts of different things,and they'll challenge each other
in a much more, you know, muchmore interesting way and they'll
(38:34):
come up with a better answer.
That's my observation.
I really do strongly believethat I've always been kind of
cautious on targets, but I'vealways been very passionate
about trying to get teams to beas diverse as possible, but
defining diversity in quite abroad way, because I think we
(38:55):
can become over obsessed withone dimension or another and
actually it's about diversethinking and I've sometimes
found that the most diversethinker in the room this
happened once or twice actuallyhas been uh, dare I said the
white, middle-aged man.
Sometimes they are the mostdiverse thinker in the room and
that's what you have to askyourself as a leader.
(39:16):
Do I have people in this roomwho are going to challenge me or
do, and they're going to bringa different perspective to my
own?
Or do I have a bunch of peoplewho are, you know, all coming
from a similar background andthey're they're going to bring a
different perspective to my own?
Or do I have a bunch of peoplewho are all coming from a
similar background and they'renot going to challenge me at all
?
Wow, that's such a very I wasjust going to say, but I am very
lucky to have to work with alot of very, very talented kind
(39:40):
of both male and female leadersin the companies I work with.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
Yeah, I think you make a really valid point.
It's not so much about the waythat a person looks per se right
, because we can say diversityis having an African American
person in the room or an Asianor whatever that may be, but
it's about do we all think thesame right and having that
diversity is such an importantkey, so I love that you brought
(40:07):
that up as a point.
Looking back now, what do youwish your younger self aboard in
that ship?
Knew, yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
I wish that as a little girl I knew the contact
details of my relatives.
It's kind of as simple as that,because if I'd known the
contact details of my relativesat some point I would have
reached out to them and said Ineed to get off this boat.
You know you need to.
You know, can you find a way tohelp me get off this boat?
(40:38):
You know you need to.
You know, can you find a way tohelp me get off this boat?
And I've now met a lot of otherchildren who had, or adults who
had, extraordinary childhoods,and many of them did escape by
being able to reach out to afamily member to kind of do that
.
But unfortunately in my casebecause it was so, because we
(40:58):
left when I was so young, Ididn't have relationships really
with my relatives and theydidn't keep in touch, Certainly
not with me.
I think my mother occasionallyhad letters from her father who
sadly passed away while we wereat sea.
So I didn't see him again afterwe left the UK.
After we left the UK.
But that's what I wish I'dknown.
(41:19):
I wish I'd known the contactdetails and I wish I'd been able
to reach out to them Now.
Would I have done that, I don'tknow, because it's very hard
for a child to walk out of thefamily unit, no matter how bad
that situation is.
It's really really hard to dothat.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Yeah, which is why a lot of kids stay stuck until you
become an adult and then youmake you know, rectify that you
built such a legacy that defiesthe odds.
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Success for me is absolutelybeing in a position in the world
where I can make my owndecisions.
Now, when I say that, I kind ofpause slightly, because I'm now
lucky enough to have threechildren of my own and so, of
course, when I take my decisions, I do try to reflect their
(42:58):
needs, although they are now allyoung adults of their own, so
increasingly that they're goingoff and making their own
decisions.
But that for me is reallyimportant.
Having the ability to kind ofmake my own decisions or to be
with people who care about me,with whom I can make decisions,
and we will kind of reflect eachother's needs.
That's really really, reallyimportant.
(43:23):
I think the other elements ofsuccess is there are things that
I feel really passionate aboutin the world, certain kind of
things that I want to achieve.
So, on the back of WaveWalker,the message I want to get out is
about the importance ofeducation and how education can
change your life, and I've beendoing a lot of talking to
schools and talking to youngpeople about that.
I think it's really important.
(43:44):
I'm also trying to get themessage across about, you know,
when you take a child out ofsociety, whether it's home
schooling or, you know, I'mgoing to go and live on a beach
in Indonesia or I'm going to goin a camper van across, you know
, africa.
Whatever it is, it can befantastic, but you need to think
(44:05):
about it from the point of viewof the child, not just the
point of view of the adult.
And if you start to hear thatthe child is not getting what
they need in terms of education,and so don't ignore that, you
know that you've got to kind oflisten to them, because they're
not in a position to make thatdecision, you're making that
decision for them.
So that's the second thing.
(44:25):
And then I do think that youknow I love what I do kind of
work-wise, and it enables meboth, hopefully, to help these
companies to be more successfuland employ more people and all
of those good things that comefrom it.
And I'm also trying to kind ofkeep alive my husband's legacy.
He was a very senior civilservant here in the UK and he
(44:46):
was very passionate about publicpolicy.
So I do quite a lot of work onthat side.
But if you add all of that up,what's incredible is that, you
know, I'm now in a positionwhere I can fulfill these goals
in my life, or at least try tofulfill those goals in my life.
And how amazing is that, howexciting is that from you know,
(45:07):
feeling like I had no autonomyand no ability to do anything,
to be able to now make adifference in my own way?
Speaker 1 (45:14):
yeah, at this point, you can go speak and create an
impact through the books thatyou're writing, and you wrote
one on your husband's life aswell.
Um, what are you most proud of?
Speaker 2 (45:27):
wow, um, that's very hard.
I'm very proud of my kids, butobviously any parent you kind of
start there, um.
But I think you know I'm stillvery proud of the little me and
by the time you get to kind ofmy age, you know I'm still very
proud of the little me and bythe time you get to kind of my
age, it's almost like the littleme is now almost a separate
individual.
It was so long ago.
But I do look back at that girland think, wow, okay, that was
(45:53):
impressive what you did.
And I almost think that now,given everything I now know
about the world and the risk ofit all failing, I don't know if
I would have the courage to doit in that sort of way again.
So I am very proud of the kindof younger me that I did that.
But I suppose overall I'm proudthat I've been able to kind of
(46:16):
create a life that I feel ismeaningful, where I have that
kind of autonomy.
Yeah, I'm proud of the book andlots of things have gone wrong,
don't get me wrong.
I mean, you know, likeeverybody, I can kind of list
all the things that have kind ofgone wrong in my life, but
overall I have a lot of thingsthat I'm very grateful for and a
lot of things that I'm proud ofyeah, it probably hasn't been
(46:40):
smooth sailing since getting offthat boat, right?
Speaker 1 (46:44):
I mean, life is hard and we all face challenges in
all the different areas.
What is next for you, and arethere any future projects that
you're excited about?
Speaker 2 (46:56):
Oh, yes, my friends and family always say to me you
know, know, that I tend to kindof run at a kind of thousand
miles an hour and I'm neverquite sure why that is.
I think it maybe it's a kind ofreaction to kind of being
trapped on that boat for adecade and now I'm trying to
make up right.
But yes, so much.
I mean, I'm writing anotherbook, uh, which is about other
(47:18):
children who had extraordinarychildhoods and they all end in
different ways.
So it's really interesting,these, these.
I've got five different storiesthat I've chosen from almost a
hundred stories that I now know.
So I'm very excited about that.
Wavewalker is due to become amini-series, which is very
exciting.
On the work side, you know,lots of interesting, lots and
(47:42):
lots of interesting things arehappening kind of there and in
this kind of foundation whichI've set up and, of course, I'm
the mum of three young adults.
So the wonderful thing aboutthat is you get to, you know, go
through all the kind of ups andheartbreaks and downs of that.
But you know, I'm very excitedabout the future for them and
(48:02):
the fact that I'm able to helpthem in a way that I wasn't
helped.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
Yeah, and they have that safety net that you didn't
have growing up.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
That's right and I think if you, if you haven't, if
you always have that safety net, it's very hard to appreciate
what it's like not to have it.
I don't think you ever grow outof the feeling that there is no
safety net, and I'm so happythat my children have that
safety net.
I don't even think it wouldoccur to them to imagine a life
(48:33):
where that safety net didn'texist.
And even though they are nowyoung adults, when something
goes wrong they still ring me upand that's wonderful.
And when they do that luckilyit's not all the time anymore,
but when they do that I oftenthink how wonderful that you've
got a parent where you think,okay, I'm now in a kind of
desperate strait of some sort orother sometimes.
(48:54):
Sometimes the desperate straitis not as big as it might be.
Sometimes it's really justmissing the Netflix password or
some other.
Sometimes it's major, but theyknow that they can ring me up
and I will do my best to sort itout, and that's kind of
wonderful.
I wonder if I can kind of givethat to them.
Speaker 1 (49:13):
And that's beautiful, that it shows the relationship
that you have stewarded withyour children, that they know
they can call you and they havethe relationship, or they want
to hear from you and want youradvice, which says a lot about
you and the way that youintentionally parented.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
That's right.
That's right.
I mean, they like their timeaway from me as well.
I have to say so, but that isall.
Speaker 1 (49:34):
Exactly as it should be.
That's right.
Well, you being an avid reader,I ask all my guests on the show
what are three books thatimpacted your life, and I'm
really curious to hear yours,since you've read so much.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
Wow, where do I start ?
So the two that I mentionedthat I read as a child and in a
way they're very obvious becauseI didn't have access to very
big libraries.
But one was the autobiographyby Helen Keller, who grew up
deaf and blind, and that had ahuge impact on me as a child
(50:11):
because it made me put my ownlife in perspective.
I mean, what, what anextraordinary woman.
And the other one, which I haveto say I always feel
embarrassed to say, is the diaryof Anne Frank, because, again,
it gave me humility about myposition, even though I could
(50:33):
see bits of myself in herexperience.
But it kind of gave me humilityin a in a really important, uh,
important way.
I mean, that was theextraordinary thing on the boat,
by the way, if you're in thatsort of situation, when you open
up a book, it is like openingup a door into another universe.
Um, and a lot of the books thatI read on wavewalker were deeply
(50:56):
age inappropriate becausebecause they literally were what
my mother kind of found in the,you know, in the um, in the
secondhand bookshop as we wentalong.
And I also loved, but yeah, Ilove things like Lord of the
Rings and there was a fabulousseries I read as a child,
duncton Wood but.
But I still read very avidly.
(51:17):
At the moment I'm reading lotsand lots and lots of books about
sailing.
In fact I'm getting a lot ofgrief from my family because the
books about sailing are kind ofpiling up and threatening to
become a bit, a little bit of ahealth habit oh, I love that.
Speaker 1 (51:33):
What is the best piece of advice that someone
gave you?
Speaker 2 (51:38):
the best piece of advice is absolutely to kind of,
you know, not be afraid ofdoing something and not to
listen when everybody tells youyou can't do something.
And that really has been alittle bit of a a mantra through
my life.
Sometimes it hasn't served mewell, because sometimes I've
(51:59):
tried to do something andrealize actually they were
completely correct and, yeah,realized.
And it's amazing how many timessomebody has told me I
shouldn't or couldn't or youknow mustn't, or you know it
would be, you know it would be,kind of you know, too much of a
stretch for me to do something.
And then I've done it and Ithought actually I could do that
.
And and one of the wonderfulthings actually about my
(52:23):
background is I am a little lessconstrained than some people
because I grew up outside ofsociety.
So although I've now been backin society for all of you know,
most of my adult life, I stillhave an ability to be a little
bit of a rebel and that that'srather good.
I can sometimes go againstconvention or go against the
advice that I'm given, and thathas often served me very well.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
I love that because they say often the thing that
people regret at the end oftheir life has a lot less to do
what they did wrong than to doof the things they wish they
could have tried and dared tostep forward and do something in
action.
So I love that so much.
Well, Suzanne, thank you somuch for your time.
It's been such a treat talkingto you across the world.
(53:08):
And where can people find you?
Speaker 2 (53:13):
Just put my name into Google.
There's a website, suzanneHaywood.
They'll also find me onLinkedIn social media.
I'm very easy to find and Ireally hope people enjoy the
book.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
Yes, I do too.
It is a page turner.
I highly recommend you guys getit, because this is a book
that's going to inspire you,encourage you and also will
really take you into a wholeother world, which is beautiful.
Thank you so much, Suzanne.
Thank you for listening to theOnes who Dare podcast.
It is an honor to share theseencouraging stories with you.
(53:44):
If you enjoy the show, I wouldlove for you to tell your
friends.
Leave us a reviewer rating andsubscribe to wherever you listen
to podcasts, because this helpsothers discover the show.
You can find me on my website,speckhopawcom.
Hey friends, welcome to the Ones who Dared podcast,
where stories of courage areelevated.
I'm your host, vekka, and everyother week you'll hear
interviews from inspiring people.
My hope is that you will leaveencouraged.
I'm so glad you're here.
Today's guest has lived a lifethat reads like an epic novel,
(00:28):
except it's all true.
When Suzanne Haywood was justseven years old, she set sail
with her family on what wasmeant to be a three-year journey
around the world.
Instead, she spent a decade atsea, surviving a shipwreck in
the Indian Ocean and fightingfor an education while living on
a sailboat.
Suzanne's memoir Waywalkerbecame an international
(00:48):
bestseller, and it's easy to seewhy Her story is as intense as
it is inspiring.
But her journey didn't stopthere.
She went on to study at Oxfordand earn a PhD from Cambridge,
before rising through the ranksof the UK Treasury and McKinsey
to now serve as a COO of Exor,one of Europe's largest holding
(01:09):
companies.
She also chairs major globalboards and sits on the Economist
Board.
In this episode, suzanne shareswhat it's like to survive a
shipwreck, push againstimpossible odds for education
and lead some of the mostpowerful boardrooms in the world
.
This is more than just a storyof survival.
It's a story of reinvention,resilience and redefining what's
(01:30):
possible.
I cannot wait to introduce youto Suzanne Haywood, an
extraordinary woman.
Suzanne Haywood, welcome to theOnce you Dare podcast.
It is such an honor to have youall the way from England.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Thank you so much.
Well, it's a huge honor to behere as well.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Your story is quite remarkable and your book that
just came out, waywalker, wasreally hard to put down.
It is a page turner for sure,well written, I'm sure, a memoir
that was hard to relive as youwrote it, and your story begins
in a seemingly ordinarychildhood a school, a home and
(02:08):
the rhythm of a familiar life.
Then came a promise of anexciting voyage, an adventure
that most children, I feel like,only read in books.
Can you take us back to themoment before Waywalkers set
sail, and what did life looklike?
And how did your dad presentthis three year journey to you
and why was this such animportant voyage for him?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
So you're right, my childhood felt incredibly normal
.
I was going to school with myyounger brother, who was a year
younger.
We had a dog, a water spanielcalled Rusty.
I had my favorite toys,particularly a doll's house that
my father had bought secondhandand repainted for me.
I had my best friend, Sarah.
You know all the normal partsof a childhood that many, many
(02:55):
people will relate to.
And then suddenly my father satus down and said I want to sail
around the world.
And his rationale for sailingaround the world was that he
wanted to follow Captain Cookaround the world.
And I should explain that mymaiden name is Cook, although
I've since discovered that we'renot actually related to Captain
(03:17):
Cook, which maybe is a firstinkling of how this story starts
to unravel.
But, as presented to me, thiswas all about Captain Cook.
Captain Cook was a big hero ofmy father's, he said, and he
wanted to do something tocommemorate the 200th
anniversary of Captain Cook'sthird voyage around the world,
(03:37):
and we would set sail on exactlythe same date as Captain Cook.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Wow.
And so you set sail.
And what were some of theemotions that you experienced
when this was presented to you?
Because I'm sure there was amix of excitement, but also
uncertainty about what is tocome.
What was going through yourmind as this was presented to
you?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
As you say, it was very mixed, because I had my dog
and my doll's house and my bestfriend and I actually loved
going to school.
I was quite a studious littlegirl, um, and that comes up and
comes back, uh, later as well.
On the other hand, I adoredlike many little girls do.
I adored my father.
I thought he could.
(04:23):
You know, he was thisincredible adventurer who could
do anything, and if he wanted meto go on this adventure with
him, of course I was going to goon this adventure with him and
he promised me it was going tobe three years and then we would
come back and everything wouldgo back to normal.
I would go back to school,rusty would be waiting for me,
(04:45):
my friends would be waiting forme.
So this was an adventure.
I would see the world and thenI would come back and my life
would go back to normal.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
At this point you were seven years old, right, and
your adventure was went fromthree years to 10 years, so you
started sailing at seven andreally the end was when you were
17.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
at what point did you sense that sense that, um, this
wasn't a thrilling adventureafter all, but something
different and even dangerous sothe first indication came almost
immediately when we went to sea, because it became very
apparent that my mother becamevery seasick and actually hated
(05:29):
sailing and withdrew into hercabin for the first few days at
sea.
So I guess that was my firstindication, because my brother
and I and I was seven and he wassix were left on our own pretty
much for several days, we maydo eating a fruitcake that had
been given to us before we setsail.
But then there were wonderfulmoments.
(05:50):
We saw whales and dolphins andflying fish and sunsets and
stars and all of those sorts ofthings.
But it all started to turn muchdarker when we set off from
South Africa to cross theSouthern Indian Ocean.
And I should explain that byfollowing Captain Cook's third
voyage we were actually sailingthe wrong way around the world.
(06:11):
So most people who sail aroundthe world, they sail from west
to east, and if you sail fromwest to east you can go around
the world near the equator,through the Panama Canal,
through the Suez Canal, andyou've pretty much got the wind
behind you.
But we were following CaptainCook and he went the other way
and that meant going very, veryfar south to catch the wind.
(06:33):
So we'd covered, we'd goneacross the southern Atlantic
Ocean, which was very rough andvery unpleasant voyage, and then
we crossed the southern IndianOcean and on that voyage we were
hit by an enormous wave myfather later estimated it to be
90 foot high, about as high asour main mast and half as high
(06:54):
again crashed through the middleof the deck, out through the
side of the boat, knocked theboat onto her side, knocked my
father overboard.
He got flung back on deck, butI was the most seriously injured
.
I ended up with a fracturedskull, broken nose and a kind of
huge blood clot on my brain.
And we were very lucky to finda tiny atoll in the middle of
(07:17):
the ocean.
Had we not found that atoll, wealmost certainly would have
sunk because the boat was sobadly damaged, we wouldn't have
made it all the way to Australia.
And on that atoll was a verysmall French base, um which,
where there was a doctor and heoperated on me.
So I ended up having sevenoperations on my head, but
(07:38):
unfortunately with no anesthetic.
Wow, so that was the point Imean mean.
At that point I knew I'd learneda number of things.
I'd learned that the sea was adangerous friend.
It could be a very beautifulfriend, but it could be a very
dangerous friend.
And I never lost that fear.
(07:59):
I learned that my father wasnot invincible, despite what
he'd said, and our boat was notinvincible either.
And I'd also learned that I wasoften on my own.
So when I went through thoseoperations on Arle Amsterdam, I
had to do them on my own.
My mother refused to come inbecause she didn't like the
(08:20):
sight of blood, so thoseoperations were all done on my
own scientific blood.
So so those operations were alldone on my own, and that really
changed the whole voyage for me, because from then on I was
quite a scared little girl and Iwas much more alone than I'd
been when we set off yeah, wow,that.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
I just can't imagine what you must have felt in the
ship and also after the wreckage, and it was days after your
injury correct the swelling inthe ship.
And also after the wreckage,and it was days after your
injury correct the swelling inthe brain that was going on,
which we know how dangerous thatis if we don't take care of
that as soon as possible.
So it was days before youreached an island for the
multiple operations and to bealone in such a crucial time of
(09:01):
physical pain but also justuncertainty and all of this
going on, that must have beenreally, really hard.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
It was.
It definitely was.
And what's been amazingactually about writing the book
is that various people from mypast have been coming forward.
And very recently, literally inthe last two weeks, uh, I was
approached by somebody calledPierre, who's mentioned in the
book, um, and he was actually onour Amsterdam and he was in the
(09:32):
room when those operations tookplace.
And every time I meet somebodyelse from my past who comes
forward, I tried to find as manypeople as I could when I was
writing, obviously, but somepeople I was unable to find, so
some of them are now finding me.
I mean, he told me how seriousthis operation was.
Actually, not only was the kindof pressure on my brain, but I
(09:55):
was liable to lose my eye aswell because of the extent of
the damage.
So that was really when thevoyage changed for me, and I
didn't think it ever really wentback to what it was.
And the first part of the book,I think, is a much more kind of
innocent part of just enjoyingthe adventure of being at sea.
(10:18):
Then, after this, you know,really, my view of it changes
quite a lot, even though I'mstill relatively young.
Yeah, and yeah, it is veryclear because in changes quite
quite a lot, even though I'mstill relatively young.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Yeah, and yeah it's.
It is very clear because in thebeginning you write about it,
you could see that your dad isyour hero in some ways and he's
this invincible character whojust does incredible things.
He's got all these adventuresand, you know, it seems like you
have a really good relationshipwith him, have a really good
relationship with him, and thenin that point, when you have
that shipwreck, there's aReader's Digest as well that
(10:48):
writes about that I'm okay todie if we die together, which is
something that your brothersaid in the middle of that
really difficult period.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
No-transcript that's right.
I mean, certainly, my brotherand I, and we were lying in
these bunks in a cabin, uh, we,we both thought we were going to
die, um, and I don't remembermy brother ever saying that
phrase.
I mean, it's quite possibleI've forgotten it because I was
very young, but my father, asyou say, wrote this article and
(11:32):
the article, and this is one ofthe reasons why I wanted to
write the book.
You know, the article is verymuch written from the
perspective of the hero in thestory you know, I'm the captain
of the boat and I fight againstthe storm and I kind of managed
to find the island, and you know, and all that is right I mean
(11:54):
he but there's a very differentstory to be told.
If you're the little girl whowas standing down below when the
wave hit and you're seriouslyinjured Because I never chose to
be there, and certainly mybrother may have said that he
was not afraid to die, but I wasvery afraid to die.
I didn't want to die, I wantedto live my life, um, and I
(12:18):
wasn't there through a choice ofmy own.
Uh, this was like a father'schoice, to kind of put us there.
So one of the reasons forwriting the book was I wanted to
tell the story through my eyes,and a lot of it is a less about
you know what version of thestory is correct or not correct,
but it's important to kind ofsee how a story looks through
(12:41):
somebody else's eyes.
And when parents take childrenon an adventure, particularly an
adventure that puts their livesat risk and takes them away
from schooling and friendshipsand all the sorts of normal
things that a child could have,that's a very different decision
that they're making for a childthan a decision that they're
making for themselves, and that,I think, is something that you
(13:04):
know often gets overlooked whenwe admire people who do these
kind of crazy adventures.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Yeah, because from another perspective, your dad
did look like a hero.
He went on this adventure andhe accomplished all these things
.
And it was like when you askedOwen in the book of, why are we
encountering so many storms?
And he said because you guysare going the wrong way, you're
going towards the wind or end.
And you said but if it'sachievable, it would be quite
(13:33):
the achievement.
So that in itself was somethingthat you could tell was a big
drive for your dad.
I am really in awe of your driveto get an education.
So you were denied the propereducation during those very
formative years, yet you endedup with a PhD from Oxford.
I'm curious to what fueled yourinner drive to learn against
(13:57):
all the odds that were againstyou, especially that you didn't
live in the time that we lived,where you could have access to
internet, to correspondence.
It was very different being inthe middle of nowhere, and take
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Speaker 2 (14:50):
So what happened after the shipwreck is, we
repaired the boat, which tookabout a year year, and then we
sailed all the way up to Hawaii.
And that should have been wherethe voyage ended, because in
Hawaii Captain Cook was killedand we were due to come back
through the Panama Canal andback to the UK and, as my father
had promised at the beginning,my life was going to go back to
normal.
But what happened was we had afamily vote and I voted to come
(15:13):
back, as did my brother, and myparents voted to keep sailing.
And I voted to come backbecause by that point I was
desperate for an education.
I'm now 12 years old.
I'm not getting any education,but also I don't have any
friends.
I'm living on a boat and myrelationship, in particular with
(15:34):
my mother, is deteriorating.
Boat and my relationship, inparticular with my mother is
deteriorating.
You know, I always stayedfriends with my father, although
my father's obsession was wassailing.
But I always stayed friendswith my father.
But my relationship with mymother became increasingly
difficult.
So I wanted to come home.
I wanted to come home to beable to go to school and have
friends and see Rusty and findthe doll's house and everything
(15:54):
else.
I had a full electrificationplan for the doll's house, by
the way that I'd kind of writtenup, but that's a side story
anyway.
But my dad overrode the boat andhe said no, I'm the captain, I
decide and we're going to keepsailing.
So we did and I realized that Ihad no way to escape from this
boat.
I didn't have a passport.
(16:15):
I didn't have a passport, Ididn't have any money, I had no
education, I was uneducated.
I was increasingly expected towork on the boat because we had
no money as a family and so whatwe were doing is taking paying
crew on board and effectivelyturning the boat into a hotel to
try and earn money to keepsailing.
So this was not a glamoroustrip for anyone kind of
(16:36):
listening who was thinking thisis a very kind of.
It was not.
We were often hungry, the boatwas becoming increasingly
disheveled over time and we onlyhad one head working toilet on
the boat.
So you know, by this point westart to have six, seven, eight
crew, eight crew on board,mainly men, and you're a teenage
(16:56):
girl.
So that's kind of tricky.
I'm sharing my cabin with kindof crew, so all of the kind of
difficulties arising from thatand I decide I have to escape or
I'm going to spend my life inthis situation.
I'm going to be stuck in boatyards, stuck on this boat with
my parents, with no friends, forthe whole of my life.
(17:22):
And I discovered that I, one wayor another, I can educate
myself.
It's not easy, but if I managedto register myself on a
correspondence course and thenif I could post off the lessons
when we got to a port, and if Icould get my father to tell me
where we were going next whichhe wouldn't always tell me, but
if I could get him to tell mewhere we were going next which
he wouldn't always tell me, butif I could get him to tell me
where we were going to go next,I could get them to send the
lessons back, and at least someof them I got back.
And then if I could findmoments to study when I wasn't
(17:44):
expected to work on the boat andI'd often do that by hiding
from my mother I could.
I could study, I could work myway through these textbooks.
And your question is where do Ifind the motivation?
And it's a really difficultquestion because I don't really
quite know now, as an adultlooking back.
But I think there were twothings.
One is I thought it was alifeline.
(18:06):
I didn't know if it would work,but I thought it was a lifeline
and it was the only one that Ihad.
And the second thing was thatin a world where I could control
nothing I couldn't even controlwhere we were going we once
sailed past the only part ofAustralia where I had friends,
because we'd stopped there for alittle while.
At one point, uh, malula Bar andI remember that the local radio
(18:31):
station came on, the, the kindof the, the kind of top, you
know the kind of top 10 radiostation came on.
It was the local Malula Barradio station and all of my
friends were there and we weregoing past and I was begging my
father in tears can we just stop?
Can we just stop for theweekend?
I haven't seen my friends foralmost a year and you know, just
the weekend I'll see them.
(18:51):
And he said no, no, no, no,we're too busy, we've got to
keep going.
And the radio station came onand I had it for about two hours
and then the radio station wentaway and it was another year
before I saw my friends again.
And that was the world I wasliving in.
I mean effectively kind of kepthostage on this boat.
So that's what drove me.
(19:11):
I thought if I get an educationI can get, eventually get
control of my life.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Yeah, and then the next part, too, is tell us about
a time where you and yourbrother were left in New Zealand
.
Where you were there.
He was there to get aneducation.
You were assigned to watch overhim per se, without your
parents being there.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Well, unfortunately, in my world there was quite a
lot of gender difference on theboat.
So, uh, my brother, my father,once said to me you know, if I
could only afford one of you toget an education, it will have
to be your brother, because he'sa boy and he'll have to grow up
and look after a family, whichI remember being shocked by as a
(19:53):
, as a child, even though thatsort of view was a bit more
prevalent then but I was stillshocked by that and I absolutely
disagreed with it.
Uh, there was nothing I coulddo.
My father was not the sort ofman that you could argue with
right or reason with.
You absolutely couldn't, but Icompletely disagreed with him.
Um, and then on the boat, itwas very gendered.
(20:15):
My brother was allowed to workon deck.
In fact, he had the only set ofsafety equipment child size
that would enable you to work ondeck.
I wasn't given one because Iwas expected to cook and clean
down below because I was a girl.
So my parents decided to keepsailing, but they were worried
about my brother's education, sothey left the two of us in New
Zealand me, as you say, to lookafter him and him to go to
(20:38):
school.
Uh, we at the time were seven,uh, 15 and 16.
I was 16, he was 15, we turned17 and 16.
While we were there, I kept ondoing my correspondence, whilst
looking after him, whilstcooking and cleaning for him,
which I was expected to do, andI became, well, first of all,
ever more determined.
I was going to kind of getmyself out of this and escape,
(21:02):
but also and when you read thebook, that's almost the most
difficult chapters of the book,because the wave was a very
physically dangerous moment whenI almost died.
I now understand, or certainlywas kind of permanently, just
could have been permanentlydisabled.
But New Zealand was where I gotreally very depressed because I
(21:23):
was left on my own as a 16 yearold, didn't know any adults in
New Zealand, apart from oneperson who I knew in Auckland,
but she was too far away tovisit and she never came to kind
of visit me until right at theend, the last two weeks where I
went up to Auckland to sit myexams.
So I was just, yeah, and I justfelt completely out of my depth.
(21:43):
I I just couldn't cope withbeing there.
But eventually I pulled myselftogether one way or another.
I kind of pulled myselftogether and thought I've just
got to kind of get through this.
You know I can't change thecircumstance that I'm in, so
I've just got to kind of getthrough this.
You know I can't change thecircumstance that I'm in, so
I've just got to work my waythrough it.
And I did and eventually wentup to Auckland, took those exams
(22:04):
and managed to get myself akind of interview at university
and that was a kind of door intoa very different life.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yeah, and I just think it's so incredible that
you did manage to get aninterview at Oxford, and how did
you come about getting thatinterview, because I'm sure that
was not an easy feat.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
It's very funny.
I look back now and I stilldon't quite understand how it
happened.
I mean, so what I did sittingin this hut because my parents
didn't really rent a properhouse for us, what I did sitting
in this hut because my parentsdidn't really rent a proper
house for us, we were living inthis hut, uh, about an hour out
of the nearest, outside of thenearest town, rotorua, and so I
was sitting in this hut thinkingI'm going to go to university,
I'm going to see if I canpossibly go to university.
(22:50):
That's what I'm going to do.
And I should say, nobody in myfamily had been to university
before and I wasn't going to aschool.
So I didn't have anyone toadvise me.
But I thought, okay, so I'mgoing to write to every
university I've heard of in theworld.
But I didn't have the addresses, so I made them up.
So I wrote to Oxford University, oxford, england, and I wrote
(23:12):
to Auckland University, auckland, new Zealand, and Harvard
University, harvard, america,and so on and so on.
You can see from this list I waswriting to quite a lot of the
very elite universities which isnot because I thought I was
elite, but they were the onlyones I knew, because somehow,
even on a boat in the SouthPacific, you've heard of these
(23:33):
universities Sydney University,sydney, australia I wrote to
London University, london,england, which doesn't really
exist, so I don't know wherethat one went.
Anyway, what then happened ismost of them wrote back and said
, no, well, quite a lot neverwrote back at all.
Harvard never wrote back and Inow realize that Harvard is not
in Harvard, so that was a bitunfortunate.
Maybe they never got my letter.
(23:54):
Um, a lot of them wrote backand said, no, you're just too
strange, you don't have kind ofproper qualifications, we won't
consider you.
But incredibly, oxford wroteback and said okay, write us a
couple of essays and we'll thinkabout it.
And then, working with mycorrespondence teacher, who was
amazing, he and I came up with acouple of topics and we were
(24:16):
deliberately trying to picktopics which were a bit.
He and I came up with a coupleof topics and we were
deliberately trying to picktopics which were a bit unusual.
And I wrote these two essaysand he gave me some advice on
them and I sent them to Oxford.
And then Oxford wrote back andsaid okay, so you can either sit
an exam or you can come for theinterview.
And I thought I have no chancesitting an exam because I've
never really been to schoolproperly and I'm trying to do
(24:39):
six subjects through theAustralian system and that, you
know, folks in the UK only dothree.
So how can I compete?
So I thought I've got to get toEngland and do an interview.
That's my only chance.
My only chance is I've got toget to England.
So then I went out picking kiwifruit, which was, I mean, it's
quite difficult to get a jobbecause I didn't have a proper
(25:00):
visa.
In fact New Zealand kept ontrying to deport me, so I didn't
have the sort of visa we couldgo and get a job.
So the thing with fruit pickingis you can.
Often they don't check.
So I was able to go and do kiwifruit picking horrible job
owned enough money with a smallcontribution from my father to
get a very convoluted ticket allthe way back to the UK, got on
(25:22):
a plane and came back on my own,which was also incredibly
frightening because I was on myown coming back.
I'd never been back to Englandfor a decade.
I left when I was seven, Ididn't know what I was going to
find at the other end.
I only had a one-way ticket andI didn't have a plan B.
There was no plan B.
Plan A was getting to Oxford.
(25:45):
Yes, plan B was to be workedout at a later point, but
couldn't really contemplate whatplan B was going to be.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Wow, that's incredible.
And just getting on that planeby yourself, going for it, and I
think sometimes, when you don'thave a plan B, you put all the
eggs into that one basket, right, and you're just.
This is it?
This is all I got.
I'm going to give it 100% and110% of everything in order to
make it happen.
(26:14):
And I just I just look at yourstory and there's so much
resilience, so much courage thatit took for you to stand up for
yourself and to say, hey, thisis what I want, I'm not going to
be controlled by mycircumstances, which is really
hard to do when so much of it isoutside of your control.
And then you do get into Oxfordwhich is a miracle in itself,
(26:37):
right Without having the formaleducation.
They give you a shot.
And I'm curious too, how, aftersuch an unconventional
childhood, how did you adjust tothe institutional life, the
everyday life at Oxford and thengoing on to McKinsey?
How was that for you, thattransition?
Because I'm sure it was not atypical childhood that you had,
(26:59):
so you weren't socialized likethe rest of the kids.
It's really interesting.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
So I thought when I got into Oxford which was just
an incredible, I mean I couldn't.
I mean I remember the letterwent to my aunt and I was in
London at the time because Iwent down to London to try and
earn some money because I had nomoney letter has arrived and
(27:27):
she opened it up and she saidwell, I think there must be some
mistake, because they made youan offer, a 2e offer, which is
like the lowest grade.
They don't do that.
They must be a must be the same.
And it wasn't a mistake.
They had just taken a bet on me.
I think they just decided okay,we just need to make a bet.
You know we're either going tosay no or we're going to say yes
, and that's just it and we'llsee what happens.
(27:47):
So I thought when I went toOxford, this was going to be
socially amazing after 10 yearsof being desperate for
friendships.
You know, desperate to do allthe things that kids normally do
.
You know, go to parties, hangout, you know, go to the pub I,
I don't know all the things thatyou know most people would see
as utterly trivial.
(28:07):
I was desperate to go and doand then I was petrified about
the academics.
I thought, you know, they'velet me in but they really don't
understand the gaps that I knoware in my education.
I never learned my times tables.
I have no foreign language.
I hadn't learned chemistry,which was a prerequisite for my
course.
(28:27):
I'd been let in to studyzoology, so I was petrified
about the academics.
When I got there, the oppositehappened, because what I found
was, academically, I had to workhard.
But the one thing I had learnedon that boat was how to work
hard.
I knew how to be disciplinedabout teaching myself and
suddenly I had access to bedisciplined about teaching
myself and suddenly I had accessto libraries and lectures and
(28:50):
books.
It was incredible.
And so, taking thatdetermination and an application
that I already had and suddenlyhaving resources available to
me, that turned out to be okay.
I just worked and said,socially it was a disaster.
It was really really much worsethan I expected and looking
(29:13):
back I realize that it was.
It was both me and it was theother.
You know, it was the otherstudents.
It was a problem for all of usbecause and probably more me
than them by by some I had verylimited social skills and they
had no experience of somebodywho was so far out of the norm,
(29:33):
because they were also veryyoung, you know, and they'd only
encountered people who were,you know, within a certain kind
of bound of normality and we hadnothing in common to talk about
.
I didn't know how to do smalltalk.
They had no interest in sailingboats or coups in Fiji or Wales
or all these other things.
(29:54):
So I was very isolated to startwith.
And then it was made moredifficult by the fact that my
parents, true to form,completely disowned me in my
second term at Oxford.
So I was poverty stricken and Ididn't qualify for a grant
because I'd been overseas for solong.
So it was really very difficult.
(30:14):
But it then ended much in amuch, much happier place because
after about a year I startedkind of figuring out the social
skills.
I started meeting friends.
I eventually went to my collegeand explained to them that I was
poverty stricken.
I put it off for a very longtime because I thought Oxford
would throw me out if theyrealized I was poverty stricken.
(30:35):
And in fact they didn't.
Uh, what they did was they saidof course, we'll help you.
You should have come and toldus ages ago, you know, sitting
in your room worrying about howyou were going to eat.
I mean how ridiculous.
You should have come and toldus.
But of course you know.
Uh, so I had some money.
Eventually I got a grant, infact.
In fact, eventually I won thebattle and got a grant.
(30:55):
Um, I started to make friends.
I went on to Cambridge, did myPhD, by which point you know I'm
actually quite normal.
You know, at leastsuperficially, you know I'm, I
have a normal grant, I havefriends, I'm having.
You know, at leastsuperficially, you know I'm, I
have a normal run, I havefriends, I'm having.
You know I'm having a fun time.
And I put a lot of whathappened on the boat behind me
and then I went on from thereinto the UK government and then
(31:16):
from there to McKinsey and thenfrom there to where I am now,
where I kind of work, you knowrunning, helping to kind of run
different companies.
And it was only when I cameback to read, to write
Wavewalker that I really had toconfront all of it.
And the real shock, when I satdown to write it and I opened my
(31:38):
diaries in particular, and mymother's diaries, is having to
confront what it really was,because I'd really, you know,
left it unpacked for such a longtime.
It was incredibly cathartic todo that, but very difficult to
do it.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Yeah, I'm sure it was hard to revisit some of those
parts and seeing actually howbecause I think when you're
living in the moment we tend tominimize right, because you're
in survival mode, you're tryingto make ends meet and figure out
how to deal with the situationYou're not thinking, wow, this
was actually really out ofcharacter for a child to be in
this position, and so on and soforth and then looking back and
(32:19):
reading your mom's diary evenwhen she describes how, when you
had that accident in your headand how in pain you were and how
swollen all the things were,was it was pretty bad, it was
not.
Um, yeah, I think that musthave been super hard for you to
go back to that it was.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
It was very hard and, and the way in which my parents
dealt with it is, they alwayshad their version of the story
and their version of the storywas my father was a hero and we
had a fantastic adventure and itall worked out well anyway, and
that was it they.
You were not allowed tochallenge that version of the
(32:59):
story and of course there'selements of that version which
are correct, um, but there's alot that's not said in that and
I needed to go back and uncoverthat and to kind of face into
what really happened and reallydig into it.
Um, and there's all sorts ofkind of phrases that I now
understand.
I mean, there was a lot of whatwe now call kind of gaslighting
(33:20):
, where stuff would happen andthen my parents would pretend it
hadn't happened.
You know, we once almost wentto ground near Melbourne in
Australia and I remember I Ikind of um, I didn't write about
it in my diary, but one of thecrew on board wrote about it in
his diary, so I remembered itand he wrote about it in his
diary.
It's missing from my father'slogbooks and my father denied
(33:44):
that it happened.
And so the other really strangething about a child growing up
in that environment is you beginto become quite dislocated from
reality because you don't knowwhat's true and what's not true
so what was really, reallyhelpful about writing the book
for me personally is I was ableto get all the facts clear.
(34:04):
I've never been allowed todiscuss the wave.
It was a banned topic onWaveWalker because it would
upset my mother.
So it was the first time in mylife I'd ever looked back at the
wave and tried to figure outwhat happened.
How badly had I been injured?
I had nightmares about it formany years afterwards but I
(34:24):
didn't know the facts of it.
About it for many yearsafterwards, but I didn't know
the facts of it.
So I'm really glad that I didit and, of course, even happier
that so many people have foundit such an interesting thing to
read.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Yeah, I think this book reminds me of.
I feel like it's a marriagebetween the story Wild and
Educated.
I just think it's remarkabletoo, because today you lead some
of the Europe's most powerfulcompanies and I'm curious to
what values have guided yourleadership today.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
So I actually think that, having escaped from
WaveWalker and I do think I wasvery lucky to escape from
WaveWalker, because I would notrecommend this childhood to
anybody, but I do think I dothink that, having escaped from
it, it has given me somestrengths which I do value, and
one of them and it's a termthat's kind of massively
(35:17):
overused it is the resilientresilience term.
So when I face a challenge inmy life and sadly, you know,
like many of us, I've faced alot of challenges, including
losing my husband, who passedaway in 2018.
I'm able to keep myself calmbecause of that experience that
(35:37):
I went through as a child, andbecause I can keep myself calm,
I can then be thoughtful abouthow I behave in order to kind of
help the people around me.
So I had to step in and be theCEO of one of the big companies
that we look after Case NewHolland, that makes agriculture
equipment through the COVIDcrisis and that ability to stay
(36:00):
calm and to listen to peoplearound me and to have a kind of
relatively low ego, um, it'sreally, really important,
because what I found is I oftendon't know the answer to
something, but almost inevitablythere's somebody there who does
, but somebody has to make adecision and hopefully the
(36:22):
person who makes a decision isgoing to be calm enough and
thoughtful enough to listen andthen, when they have as many
facts as they can reasonably getand, by the way, you can't
normally get as many facts asyou might like they can make a
decision.
So I think that resilience,that ability to be calm in a
crisis and the ability to teachmyself I I still teach myself.
(36:44):
I still I love teaching myself.
I think that's something I kindof learned and learned to kind
of enjoy as a child.
So I now teach myself all sortsof stuff useful stuff, not
useful stuff.
I just have a kind of I enjoyeducating myself.
I think I do just somehowthat's a habit.
Those things are real strengthsthat came out of my childhood
and I'm really thankful forthose.
(37:06):
I think I paid far too highercosts for them, but they're
still there as things that Ivalue in myself yeah, that's
really remarkable.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
What is your perspective on the importance of
women in executive leadershipand how can more of us break
into that space?
Speaker 2 (37:24):
so I think it's really important.
I mean, I'm a I'm verypassionate about trying to get
leadership to represent thebiggest breadth of different
views and backgrounds andperspectives as possible,
because and for me, it's notjust about gender and it's not
just about kind of racialbackground, it's as much about
(37:47):
kind of educational backgroundand social background.
And the reason why it'simportant is that my observation
throughout my career is thatwhen you get a group of people
who bring different perspectives, they tend to come to a much
more interesting decision,because otherwise you have an
echo chamber.
You know you have person numberone who you know, maybe the same
gender as everybody echochamber.
You know, you have personnumber one who you know, maybe
(38:09):
the same gender as everybodyelse, but you know comes from
the same schooling system aseverybody else and has had the
same life experiences assomebody else.
They say we should do this andeverybody says, well, that's a
great idea, right?
You get a bunch of people whocome from different places and
have done different things and,as you say, different genders,
all sorts of different things,and they'll challenge each other
in a much more, you know, muchmore interesting way and they'll
(38:34):
come up with a better answer.
That's my observation.
I really do strongly believethat I've always been kind of
cautious on targets, but I'vealways been very passionate
about trying to get teams to beas diverse as possible, but
defining diversity in quite abroad way, because I think we
(38:55):
can become over obsessed withone dimension or another and
actually it's about diversethinking and I've sometimes
found that the most diversethinker in the room this
happened once or twice actuallyhas been uh, dare I said the
white, middle-aged man.
Sometimes they are the mostdiverse thinker in the room and
that's what you have to askyourself as a leader.
(39:16):
Do I have people in this roomwho are going to challenge me or
do, and they're going to bringa different perspective to my
own?
Or do I have a bunch of peoplewho are, you know, all coming
from a similar background andthey're they're going to bring a
different perspective to my own?
Or do I have a bunch of peoplewho are all coming from a
similar background and they'renot going to challenge me at all
?
Wow, that's such a very I wasjust going to say, but I am very
lucky to have to work with alot of very, very talented kind
(39:40):
of both male and female leadersin the companies I work with.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
Yeah, I think you make a really valid point.
It's not so much about the waythat a person looks per se right
, because we can say diversityis having an African American
person in the room or an Asianor whatever that may be, but
it's about do we all think thesame right and having that
diversity is such an importantkey, so I love that you brought
(40:07):
that up as a point.
Looking back now, what do youwish your younger self aboard in
that ship?
Knew, yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
I wish that as a little girl I knew the contact
details of my relatives.
It's kind of as simple as that,because if I'd known the
contact details of my relativesat some point I would have
reached out to them and said Ineed to get off this boat.
You know you need to.
You know, can you find a way tohelp me get off this boat?
(40:38):
You know you need to.
You know, can you find a way tohelp me get off this boat?
And I've now met a lot of otherchildren who had, or adults who
had, extraordinary childhoods,and many of them did escape by
being able to reach out to afamily member to kind of do that
.
But unfortunately in my casebecause it was so, because we
(40:58):
left when I was so young, Ididn't have relationships really
with my relatives and theydidn't keep in touch, Certainly
not with me.
I think my mother occasionallyhad letters from her father who
sadly passed away while we wereat sea.
So I didn't see him again afterwe left the UK.
After we left the UK.
But that's what I wish I'dknown.
(41:19):
I wish I'd known the contactdetails and I wish I'd been able
to reach out to them Now.
Would I have done that, I don'tknow, because it's very hard
for a child to walk out of thefamily unit, no matter how bad
that situation is.
It's really really hard to dothat.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Yeah, which is why a lot of kids stay stuck until you
become an adult and then youmake you know, rectify that you
built such a legacy that defiesthe odds.
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Success for me is absolutelybeing in a position in the world
where I can make my owndecisions.
Now, when I say that, I kind ofpause slightly, because I'm now
lucky enough to have threechildren of my own and so, of
course, when I take my decisions, I do try to reflect their
(42:58):
needs, although they are now allyoung adults of their own, so
increasingly that they're goingoff and making their own
decisions.
But that for me is reallyimportant.
Having the ability to kind ofmake my own decisions or to be
with people who care about me,with whom I can make decisions,
and we will kind of reflect eachother's needs.
That's really really, reallyimportant.
(43:23):
I think the other elements ofsuccess is there are things that
I feel really passionate aboutin the world, certain kind of
things that I want to achieve.
So, on the back of WaveWalker,the message I want to get out is
about the importance ofeducation and how education can
change your life, and I've beendoing a lot of talking to
schools and talking to youngpeople about that.
I think it's really important.
(43:44):
I'm also trying to get themessage across about, you know,
when you take a child out ofsociety, whether it's home
schooling or, you know, I'mgoing to go and live on a beach
in Indonesia or I'm going to goin a camper van across, you know
, africa.
Whatever it is, it can befantastic, but you need to think
(44:05):
about it from the point of viewof the child, not just the
point of view of the adult.
And if you start to hear thatthe child is not getting what
they need in terms of education,and so don't ignore that, you
know that you've got to kind oflisten to them, because they're
not in a position to make thatdecision, you're making that
decision for them.
So that's the second thing.
(44:25):
And then I do think that youknow I love what I do kind of
work-wise, and it enables meboth, hopefully, to help these
companies to be more successfuland employ more people and all
of those good things that comefrom it.
And I'm also trying to kind ofkeep alive my husband's legacy.
He was a very senior civilservant here in the UK and he
(44:46):
was very passionate about publicpolicy.
So I do quite a lot of work onthat side.
But if you add all of that up,what's incredible is that, you
know, I'm now in a positionwhere I can fulfill these goals
in my life, or at least try tofulfill those goals in my life.
And how amazing is that, howexciting is that from you know,
(45:07):
feeling like I had no autonomyand no ability to do anything,
to be able to now make adifference in my own way?
Speaker 1 (45:14):
yeah, at this point, you can go speak and create an
impact through the books thatyou're writing, and you wrote
one on your husband's life aswell.
Um, what are you most proud of?
Speaker 2 (45:27):
wow, um, that's very hard.
I'm very proud of my kids, butobviously any parent you kind of
start there, um.
But I think you know I'm stillvery proud of the little me and
by the time you get to kind ofmy age, you know I'm still very
proud of the little me and bythe time you get to kind of my
age, it's almost like the littleme is now almost a separate
individual.
It was so long ago.
But I do look back at that girland think, wow, okay, that was
(45:53):
impressive what you did.
And I almost think that now,given everything I now know
about the world and the risk ofit all failing, I don't know if
I would have the courage to doit in that sort of way again.
So I am very proud of the kindof younger me that I did that.
But I suppose overall I'm proudthat I've been able to kind of
(46:16):
create a life that I feel ismeaningful, where I have that
kind of autonomy.
Yeah, I'm proud of the book andlots of things have gone wrong,
don't get me wrong.
I mean, you know, likeeverybody, I can kind of list
all the things that have kind ofgone wrong in my life, but
overall I have a lot of thingsthat I'm very grateful for and a
lot of things that I'm proud ofyeah, it probably hasn't been
(46:40):
smooth sailing since getting offthat boat, right?
Speaker 1 (46:44):
I mean, life is hard and we all face challenges in
all the different areas.
What is next for you, and arethere any future projects that
you're excited about?
Speaker 2 (46:56):
Oh, yes, my friends and family always say to me you
know, know, that I tend to kindof run at a kind of thousand
miles an hour and I'm neverquite sure why that is.
I think it maybe it's a kind ofreaction to kind of being
trapped on that boat for adecade and now I'm trying to
make up right.
But yes, so much.
I mean, I'm writing anotherbook, uh, which is about other
(47:18):
children who had extraordinarychildhoods and they all end in
different ways.
So it's really interesting,these, these.
I've got five different storiesthat I've chosen from almost a
hundred stories that I now know.
So I'm very excited about that.
Wavewalker is due to become amini-series, which is very
exciting.
On the work side, you know,lots of interesting, lots and
(47:42):
lots of interesting things arehappening kind of there and in
this kind of foundation whichI've set up and, of course, I'm
the mum of three young adults.
So the wonderful thing aboutthat is you get to, you know, go
through all the kind of ups andheartbreaks and downs of that.
But you know, I'm very excitedabout the future for them and
(48:02):
the fact that I'm able to helpthem in a way that I wasn't
helped.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
Yeah, and they have that safety net that you didn't
have growing up.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
That's right and I think if you, if you haven't, if
you always have that safety net, it's very hard to appreciate
what it's like not to have it.
I don't think you ever grow outof the feeling that there is no
safety net, and I'm so happythat my children have that
safety net.
I don't even think it wouldoccur to them to imagine a life
(48:33):
where that safety net didn'texist.
And even though they are nowyoung adults, when something
goes wrong they still ring me upand that's wonderful.
And when they do that luckilyit's not all the time anymore,
but when they do that I oftenthink how wonderful that you've
got a parent where you think,okay, I'm now in a kind of
desperate strait of some sort orother sometimes.
(48:54):
Sometimes the desperate straitis not as big as it might be.
Sometimes it's really justmissing the Netflix password or
some other.
Sometimes it's major, but theyknow that they can ring me up
and I will do my best to sort itout, and that's kind of
wonderful.
I wonder if I can kind of givethat to them.
Speaker 1 (49:13):
And that's beautiful, that it shows the relationship
that you have stewarded withyour children, that they know
they can call you and they havethe relationship, or they want
to hear from you and want youradvice, which says a lot about
you and the way that youintentionally parented.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
That's right.
That's right.
I mean, they like their timeaway from me as well.
I have to say so, but that isall.
Speaker 1 (49:34):
Exactly as it should be.
That's right.
Well, you being an avid reader,I ask all my guests on the show
what are three books thatimpacted your life, and I'm
really curious to hear yours,since you've read so much.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
Wow, where do I start ?
So the two that I mentionedthat I read as a child and in a
way they're very obvious becauseI didn't have access to very
big libraries.
But one was the autobiographyby Helen Keller, who grew up
deaf and blind, and that had ahuge impact on me as a child
(50:11):
because it made me put my ownlife in perspective.
I mean, what, what anextraordinary woman.
And the other one, which I haveto say I always feel
embarrassed to say, is the diaryof Anne Frank, because, again,
it gave me humility about myposition, even though I could
(50:33):
see bits of myself in herexperience.
But it kind of gave me humilityin a in a really important, uh,
important way.
I mean, that was theextraordinary thing on the boat,
by the way, if you're in thatsort of situation, when you open
up a book, it is like openingup a door into another universe.
Um, and a lot of the books thatI read on wavewalker were deeply
(50:56):
age inappropriate becausebecause they literally were what
my mother kind of found in the,you know, in the um, in the
secondhand bookshop as we wentalong.
And I also loved, but yeah, Ilove things like Lord of the
Rings and there was a fabulousseries I read as a child,
duncton Wood but.
But I still read very avidly.
(51:17):
At the moment I'm reading lotsand lots and lots of books about
sailing.
In fact I'm getting a lot ofgrief from my family because the
books about sailing are kind ofpiling up and threatening to
become a bit, a little bit of ahealth habit oh, I love that.
Speaker 1 (51:33):
What is the best piece of advice that someone
gave you?
Speaker 2 (51:38):
the best piece of advice is absolutely to kind of,
you know, not be afraid ofdoing something and not to
listen when everybody tells youyou can't do something.
And that really has been alittle bit of a a mantra through
my life.
Sometimes it hasn't served mewell, because sometimes I've
(51:59):
tried to do something andrealize actually they were
completely correct and, yeah,realized.
And it's amazing how many timessomebody has told me I
shouldn't or couldn't or youknow mustn't, or you know it
would be, you know it would be,kind of you know, too much of a
stretch for me to do something.
And then I've done it and Ithought actually I could do that
.
And and one of the wonderfulthings actually about my
(52:23):
background is I am a little lessconstrained than some people
because I grew up outside ofsociety.
So although I've now been backin society for all of you know,
most of my adult life, I stillhave an ability to be a little
bit of a rebel and that that'srather good.
I can sometimes go againstconvention or go against the
advice that I'm given, and thathas often served me very well.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
I love that because they say often the thing that
people regret at the end oftheir life has a lot less to do
what they did wrong than to doof the things they wish they
could have tried and dared tostep forward and do something in
action.
So I love that so much.
Well, Suzanne, thank you somuch for your time.
It's been such a treat talkingto you across the world.
(53:08):
And where can people find you?
Speaker 2 (53:13):
Just put my name into Google.
There's a website, suzanneHaywood.
They'll also find me onLinkedIn social media.
I'm very easy to find and Ireally hope people enjoy the
book.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
Yes, I do too.
It is a page turner.
I highly recommend you guys getit, because this is a book
that's going to inspire you,encourage you and also will
really take you into a wholeother world, which is beautiful.
Thank you so much, Suzanne.
Thank you for listening to theOnes who Dare podcast.
It is an honor to share theseencouraging stories with you.
(53:44):
If you enjoy the show, I wouldlove for you to tell your
friends.
Leave us a reviewer rating andsubscribe to wherever you listen
to podcasts, because this helpsothers discover the show.
You can find me on my website,speckhopawcom.
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The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.