# The managers Isabel admires — and why

- **Episode:** [235](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/235.md) (2025-09-25)
- **Type:** interview
- **Tags:** management, admiration, leadership
- **Time:** 36:12–37:52 (start 2172s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/235?t=2172](https://truthliesandwork.com/235?t=2172)

---

[36:12] Al Elliott: I think I read in your book that there was a particular manager or number of managers who you admire and you learned a lot from. So, I mean, can you maybe, I don't know whether you can tell me who they are, but I'd like to learn a bit about who taught you how to be a great manager
[36:26] Isabel Berwick: Yeah. So I've had some really great managers. At the FT and elsewhere, I've been really lucky, but I think they've been people that have been slightly ahead of me in terms of their life stage, often. Not always, but I had one particular manager called Debbie Hargreaves when I were— when I had very young children, and she had 3 children herself. She had a very senior job at the FT, and she was a very good journalist. But she was also showing, modeling that you could have 3 kids and be a great journalist and be a great manager and be a really interesting, funny, and kind human being. So for me, I'm someone who likes to look up to a manager. I have a, um, probably because of my generation, I have a fairly sort of old-fashioned view of setting an example, I guess, while also being human and humane. So I think she was someone who really made a big impression on me and actually really helped to keep me in the workforce at a time when I was struggling to manage, you know, having, having kids and a big job on a national newspaper. It's hard, but she'd already done it and she modeled it brilliantly