Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Businesswoman and CEO of the Co-operative Group, the first female and first ethnic minority leader in its 180-year history.
On the island
Eight records
this song is one that breaks my heart, but gives me hope all at once
a really anti-racist, strong message that I very, very strongly believe in
this is a song that reminds me of when I met my husband [Izzar]
when I did lose Sophie, I felt that I went into a supermassive black hole … and [it] gave me comfort at the time
How Great Thou ArtFavourite
a song that talks to my family, that talks to immense faith
Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of
you can just pick yourself up and stop feeling sorry for yourself and keep going
The keepsakes
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:19As CEO, how are you able to take people with you when you're implementing big changes?
What I try to do is be very, very transparent about where we are. And I've had advice before that if you're very honest with people, you might lose the locker room. I think people are in the locker room because they want to play. And I'd rather speak to them very honestly about where we are and then work together as to where we're going forward. … People will not stand behind a vision. They will not work towards it if they don't feel that they've had a part in creating it. I wouldn't. I need to understand the context of where we're going and I need to know that I've been listened to. So I think it's important to show that respect to every single person in the organisation.
Presenter asks
3:23How do you prepare yourself to have those kinds of conversations [about making people redundant] both at a board level and then with the individuals affected?
You have to take a deep breath. … I always try to think, you know, what if it was happening to me and how would I want to be treated? But I can be very hard. The way that I always look at it is: if I don't focus on myself, if I focus on the organization and I focus on the colleagues and customers and members for which I have an obligation, if the decisions that I make are for their good, not my good, then I do what I have to do.
The book
I think of the scriptures of the Abrahamic religions as a trilogy. So you kindly gave me the Torah and the rest of the Bible. I'd like to take the Koran, please.
The luxury
A photo of my family (husband Izzar, daughters, and dog Teddy)
I think I'd prefer a photo of them and Isar and Teddy the dog.
Presenter asks
You've described your father as very inspirational. How did he encourage you when you were growing up?
Sometimes people who stereotype, they think that Middle Eastern men think about women in a certain way. Never the case with my father. He would always say, you can be whatever you want, you can do whatever you want. I remember calling him and saying, when I finished my master's degree, and I called him and I said, dad, I've done it. I've finished my master's degree, you know. And his first thing to me, the first thing he said to me was, congratulations, when are you getting your PhD? … So it was always what's next? What are you going to do next?
Presenter asks
14:44Your father was Christian when you were growing up. Your mother was Muslim. What part did faith play in family life?
No part at all. What they said to us was you choose your own path and you choose the religion that you want to be. And we celebrated Christmas, Eids, or the Baitams in Turkish. So we celebrated everything. But when it came to religion, they just let us do what we needed to do.
Presenter asks
16:16What place does religion have in your life today, and where have you landed after all of that?
Very strong belief in God. I understand the roles that the various prophets have performed in terms of communicating about God and what we are expected to do, which is good. And I've also seen that religion causes a lot of division as well. So I don't really subscribe to religion. … I have a very strong faith, but I'd rather not sign up to any religion.
Presenter asks
19:44You once had a difficult confrontation with one of your maths teachers in Australia. What happened?
I moved to Australia again in the middle of a school year. And when I went to the school, the teacher said to me, Do you have a calculator in the most disparaging way, assuming that because I'd come from America, because I have the accent that I do, that I really didn't know much. … But I said to this teacher, I want to do the higher-level maths, and he said, You will never make it. And I said, I want to do it anyway. And I did end up doing it, and I worked my way up from being 26th out of 26 students to the number two out of 26.
“I've also seen that religion causes a lot of division as well. So I don't really subscribe to religion. But you have a strong faith yourself. I have a very strong faith, but I'd rather not sign up to any religion.”
“I had grown up in such an international environment previously, but when I landed in Australia, I suddenly faced racism coming my way. And was that a new experience? Brand new for me. I hadn't seen it before, and I wasn't there very long before someone called me a wog, and I didn't know what that meant. I actually went home and said, What's a wog?”
“Our daughter was born, she died. She died eleven minutes after she was born.”
“I came out and then had to deal with losing our daughter. Now, it's actually easier not to talk about it. And I've chosen to talk about it because when I did eventually come back to work and I decided to be very open about my experience, it was incredible to learn how many people had gone through miscarriages, people that I had known for years had lost babies. And in the talking about it, it's important to be able to provide people with that support.”
“I was sitting across from someone. … He looked at my last name and he said, ah, Corey. He said, Are you from the Lebanon? And I said to him, My father's Palestinian, my mother's Turkish. And he said, Ah, you Arabs, you're a bunch of lazy, shifty people, aren't you? … I said, Well, it's better to be a lazy and shifty Arab than a racist drunk. And we left it at that.”