Marjorie Scardino became the first female Chief Executive of a FTSE 100 company when she was appointed CEO of Pearson PLC in 1997. But attaining such a formidable position didn't come from making decisions that people always loved. In fact, for Marjorie, it was quite the opposite! While running a newspaper earlier in her career, important members of the community hated the coverage of them so much, they ostracized Marjorie and her family.

"When we would write articles about certain people in the community, they didn’t like it. So, we learned how to live with people who didn’t like us. We would walk in places and people would literally get up and leave!" she recounts now with a laugh.

Marjorie says she grew to learn that she could fail and not die: "That's a powerful lesson.

If you've never experienced any major failures, you're just afraid of everything."

Watch the video version of my interview with Marjorie Scardino below: