Advertising beauty products is easy. All you have to do is revile your customers by creating a disease called getting older, and then provide a remedy which does not work.

There has been a real influence on young people, whose travel is experiential. For them, their values change when their experiences change; travel is like a university without walls.

The Body Shop Foundation is run by our staff and supports social activism and environmental activism. We don't tend to support big agencies.

I started The Body Shop in 1976 simply to create a livelihood for myself and my two daughters, while my husband, Gordon, was trekking across the Americas. I had no training or experience and my only business acumen was Gordon's advice to take sales of £300 a week. Nobody talks of entrepreneurship as survival, but that's exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking.

People I work with are open to leadership that has a vision, but this vision has to be communicated clearly and persuasively, and always, always with passion.

Every time you buy something consider it a vote of confidence in the company that produced it.

I have no interest in being the biggest, the most profitable or the largest retailer. I just want The Body Shop to be the best, most breathlessly exciting company - and one that changes the way business is carried out.