What I Learned

I grew up in a small village in Guyana, and when I was 9 my family moved to Britain. I think the experience of migration always has a huge impact no matter what your age. I grew up as an international person, in part because I had a strong sense of who I was and where I came from.

As a young woman I was quite academic, always interested in what was happening in the world. I had a strong sense of fairness and the need for equality. In university I very quickly became involved in women's and ethnic minority organizations. I remember that when I was in my late teens, if you ever asked me what I wanted to do I would blithely say, "Change the world."

After university I was involved in setting up one of the first black women's organizations in Birmingham. [Later] I found a job as a race-relations adviser in South London, and that started my career in local government. In 1989 I was headhunted to become the chief executive of the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC), which moved me from local into national politics.

When I left the EOC in 1994, I went to South Africa after Nelson Mandela came into office. It was a whole society that needed to be transformed, and that started my long-term love affair with South Africa. I worked there pretty consistently until 1998, consulting for the national and local governments. When Labour won in 1997, I was asked if I wanted to become a member of the House of Lords as a working Labour peer. Then in June 1998 I got a phone call from Prime Minister Tony Blair asking me to become a government whip in the House of Lords. In 2003, I became the cabinet minister responsible for the Department for International Development. It was my dream job.

When Lord Williams, the leader of the House of Lords,?died unexpectedly during the summer of 2003, Parliament was on recess. When I rang to find out who was going to be our new leader, I was told, "Actually, the P.M. wants to see you." So again I went to see Tony, and he said, "It's a senior job; I want you to do it." And I said, "Prime minister, if this is what you want, I will do it." I have now been nominated by Gordon Brown to become the European Union special representative to the African Union.

My advice to women is to know what you want to achieve. Understand you need help and support and learn from your mistakes, have fun and be flexible. I think it is really important not to box yourself in and say, "I am on this particular career path" because you lose opportunities that way. I think a lot of women constrain themselves because they look at their experiences and expertise in quite a narrow light. We need to be more open to opportunities and what we are prepared to think about. Women need to have more confidence in their experience and their skill. I've never been hung up thinking, "Can I actually do it?"