Prof Dame Carol Black is Chair of the British Library and Chair of the Centre for Ageing Better and holds high-level policy advisory positions on health and work, such as leading a Home Office review into drugs and serious violence.

A medical practitioner, she was Head of Rheumatology at the Royal Free Hospital and maintains an interest in research into connective tissue diseases. A former President of the Royal College of Physicians, Professor Black was also Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge – one of the few remaining single-sex higher education institutions in the UK – until 2019. She was in the 2013 BBC Woman’s Hour Power List of 100. Head girl at her grammar school, she says:

Perhaps my earliest achievement was to defy limited family expectations. I was meant to stay living in my home town and work in a shoe factory or shop; but I had a stubborn belief that more was possible… In order to have this sort of career, I’ve had to get over low expectations of what women could do and be. It took me a while to realise that it was perfectly all right to want to be a Medical Director or lead a unit. As a result I’m very interested in mentoring women towards leadership positions and I actively encourage them to simply have a go… With my own career, it matters to me terribly that I try and that I take risks. I would rather say, ‘I had a go and it didn’t work’, than look in the mirror and realise I didn’t put myself in the race.