Carole Stone

The daughter of a sweet shop owner, Carole was a gawky girl with, as she says, huge feet and a big nose: she was also terribly shy. But she overcame her lack of confidence and became the producer of Woman's Hour, Down Your Way and Any Questions and it was these programmes which allowed her to exploit her communication skills. She is now a media consultant or 'facilitator', running lunches for major organisations, putting useful people together. Her parties have become legendary, with politicians, media moguls, actors and bishops happily queuing round the block to get in.