Philip Green

I'm in the retail business, not the circus business.

I am a positive thinker. You have to have this positive energy to get somewhere.

It's all about quality of life and finding a happy balance between work and friends and family.

I think everybody, from every end of the market place, from young through to old, wants to be fashionable. Everybody. Women want to feel like they're wearing the right merchandise, regardless of age. They want to be trendy.

I don't like department stores. I had a chain of department stores back in 1994 which was Lewis's and Owen Owen, only for a short time, and I found department stores personally difficult.

Stand in my lobby at 5:30 P.M., and there is no one who gets out of the lift who is not on a gadget. No one is talking to each other. I get in the lift and say, 'Hello,' and everyone's head is down tapping on a screen.

Good, bad or indifferent, if you are not investing in new technology, you are going to be left behind.

They already know all about brands... but what 16- and 17-year-olds won't necessarily have is experience of the world of work. The more that businesses get involved with schools, the better, because businesses sometimes complain that students don't have what they require to succeed in work.