I was certainly never conscious of 'playing the woman'. I would not have approved of that. It is not a winning tactic. I operated in the world as I found it, and it was a man's world.

I am sorry to be leaving the BBC. I have enjoyed a fascinating seven years at the corporation and am particularly proud to have played a small part in the development of the BBC's Global News services, BBC World Service and BBC World.

One of the marked characteristics of the U.K. security industry as compared with defence is the lack of company scale. This can put our firms at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to big contracts.

The suicide bombers who struck London on 7 July 2005 killed 52 innocent people and wounded hundreds more. All of them must live with their memories. And the rest of us will always remember where we were when we heard that London had been hit by the worst terrorist attack in its history.

The British security industry has the capacity to be a world leader and it should be our shared objective to achieve this.

It is really important for women to look up and see other women being successful. When I was in that position, all I wanted to do was blend in and be one of the guys.

Our work in Britain suggests that radicalization is driven by an ideology which claims that Muslims around the world are being oppressed and - and this is the key bit of the argument - which then legitimizes violence in their supposed defense.