I am still looking for the modern equivalent of those Quakers who ran successful businesses and made money because they offered honest products and treated their people decently . . . This business creed, sadly, seems long forgotten.

business itself is now the most powerful force for change in the world today, richer and faster by far than most governments. And what is it doing with this power? It is using free trade, the most powerful weapon at its disposal, to tighten its grip on the globe.

I can't bear to be around people who are bland or bored or uninterested (or to employ them).

My passionate belief is that business can be fun, it can be conducted with love and a powerful force for good.

I run my company according to feminine principles, principles of caring, making intuitive decisions, not getting hung up on hierarchy or all those dreadfully boring business-school management ideas; having a sense of work as being part of your life, not separate from it; putting your labor where your love is; being responsible to the world in how you use your profits; recognizing the bottom line should stay at the bottom.

Ninety-nine per cent of what we say is about values. I firmly believe that ethical capitalism is the best way of changing society for the better.

If trade undermines life, narrows it or impoverishes it, then it can destroy the world. If it enhances life, then it can better the world.