How did it feel to win the Veuve Clicquot Businesswoman of the Year award at that time?
It was amazing to be a finalist and then when I won I was really humbled. It’s a bit embarrassing to be acknowledged for something that took a lot of people to achieve, but it was a wonderful honour. There is a grapevine at the Manoir de Verzy vineyard that has my name on it! It was a huge privilege – really, really wonderful. What was your response when 3i, the venture capital group that owned the majority stake in the company, decided to sell to easyJet? I was devastated when they sold Go because it was my baby. I felt there was so much more to do. At that time our turnover was £250 million and I could easily see how we could grow to be a billion. Customers named us the most popular low cost airline and we had a profitable business model. We thought we were going places. But it was a really important life lesson for me; if you take someone else’s money, ultimately they control the business. It was more than a business to us, but it was all painted orange. That’s why I wrote the book,
