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The former Tory cabinet minister enjoys the battle to change City attitudes towards women in senior corporate roles

At a time when most people would be contemplating spending more time with the grandchildren, there are some who still relish being in the office every day to deal with problems.

Virginia Bottomley â€" Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone, to give her full title, is in the latter category. She's not an ardent reader â€" a collection of boring business books on her office shelves testifies to that. And rather than enjoying one of her three homes â€" Westminster, Surrey and the Isle of Wight â€" the former Tory cabinet minister turned City headhunter finds fulfilment in spotting the right people for the right jobs, and especially in helping more women obtain high-powered business positions.

At Odgers Berndtson, Britain's largest headhunting firm with £50m of turnover and 400 staff, Bottomley placed former City minister Paul Myners on the Marks & Spencer board, put Paul Deighton in charge of delivering London Olympics, made Barbara Stocking director of Oxfam and Richard Lambert leader of the CBI.

"Temperamentally, I am more suited for headhunting â€" politics is about policy, but the issue is not who's going to make it happen," she says in her unpretentious office overlooking Hanover Square behind Oxford Street.

A photo of John Major's 1992 cabinet hangs on the wall, showing her standing next to Michael Portillo. She was health secretary for three years before taking over at national heritage for the remainder of that turbulent administration, and the ups and downs of public life taught her that the best leaders are those who get back on their feet after being wounded. And so it seems that the unpredictable nature of Westminster politics has left her with an attraction to the more complex business problems and an aversion to starry appointments.

"We don't do prima donna school of headhunting â€" we solve an insolvable equation," she says of her team, which employs 31 people. "Some people go on the easy ride, but I like people who've been through the storm â€" it's the people who can stand straight."

Odgers delivered City veteran Simon Walker to the role of chief executive of the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association when buyout firms faced a public backlash for inflating their companies with debt, without generating enough jobs or growth. Bottomley says she knows how it feels to be in the firing line from her cabinet days, when there was the possibility that she could be sacked, or resign, almost every month.

But her favourite battle is about women â€" with men. Ten years ago, when she started at Odgers, chairmen of large companies told her that they "just couldn't have a woman" on their boards, and couldn't understand why women wanted to have a two- or three-year career break to have children. Men used the golf course for fun, but also for networking, leaving women out of the running for potential jobs.

Now, after years of explaining, networking and hand-shaking, "even men" can understand career breaks, she says. Almost a quarter of board positions filled by Odgers' hunts are allocated to women, and no shortlist is all-male any more. One client recently offered a bonus of £30,000 if Odgers could find a woman to occupy a boardroom seat.

Changing attitudes

For a start, the middle-class, middle-aged men who dominate business and politics have understood that their own children could be jeopardised by their own policies, Bottomley says. "They know that their hugely intelligent daughters are at a disadvantage," she says, also speaking as someone whose daughter is a City trader.

Bottomley has also pressed hard to persuade directors that boards should include legal, communications and marketing experts, a move that may open the door to more women, as they more often fill high positions in those areas than in finance or sales. Retail, food, and financial service companies are also realising who most of their customers are, and the need to represent them at the top of the company, she says.

But Britain's boards are still far from representative of the population as a whole. Only 10% of directors in the country's top 100 companies are women, and 25 of the top firms have no women board members at all. "It's still work in progress â€" individuals are inclined to look in the mirror, and appoint in their image, rather than look through the window and recognise the diversity of the work environment," Bottomley says. "A board should be an orchestra that can play a harmonious tune, not just a group of violins."

Companies need to search in a wider pool of candidates. To lead by example, Bottomley boasts that she employs former bankers, journalists and even an admiral because "if he can unite a ship, he can run a team".

Still, access to board positions is tough, since most openings are not even advertised. Instead, word of mouth and the ties of friendship are the main way into these highly paid and influential positions. Board members of large FTSE 100 companies can be paid as much as £100,000 a year to attend a few meetings and read over the company's documents. Occupying one board seat can usually lead into another one, as companies seek experience from other firms.

Women also need to stop "selling themselves short," Bottomley says, adding that men are better at highlighting their strengths. As an example, Bottomley remembers when Margaret Thatcher offered her a job in environment, and she replied that she didn't know anything about the subject. "You'll have to read up," the former primer minister answered.

Women's access to top positions may be improving â€" especially for those like Bottomley, the third generation of female graduates of the London School of Economics. She has a privileged background â€" family members include cousins Peter Jay, the economist and broadcaster, Liberal Democrat treasury spokesman Lord Oakeshott and brother Christopher Garnett, until recently chief executive of GNER. Bottomley, who counts the chancellorship of Hull university among her various roles, put her three children through Cambridge.

Wary of politicians

However, Bottomley says that she is aware Britain is still a country divided by differences so wide that people at its extremes barely know each other. When asked how the Eton-educated David Cameron is going to change that, she argues that the prime minister has made "a great effort" to make his party "look more like Britain today".

People should always have a chance â€" to fight, to stand up, to change, she says. She's all for mid-life career changes, proud of her move from politics into headhunting after reaching the age of 50. But she's wary of former politicians â€" perhaps a certain former prime minister â€" going into business, especially those "moving into the celebrity world". Rather than finding gate-openers, Odgers is "here to advise on who's got the real technical skills".

Above all that, lack of ego, integrity, desire to bring change and good references will weigh more in the final reckoning, she says â€" adding that she isn't fooled by self-boosting propaganda. "I don't necessarily believe anything people say to me," she says.

One shouldn't. No nepotism in headhunting? Asked who she would hire to lead the Labour party now that Gordon Brown has departed, Bottomley immediately picks historian and newly elected MP Tristram Hunt â€" a nephew.