Lessons from Hollywood’s Most Powerful Woman—And How They Can Help You (with Donna Langley)

Summary

Aspire with Emma Grede, Episode: "Lessons from Hollywood’s Most Powerful Woman—And How They Can Help You"

Guest: Dame Donna Langley, Chairman of NBCUniversal Entertainment
Date: August 26, 2025
Host: Emma Grede

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Episode Overview

In a landmark first podcast interview, Dame Donna Langley—the first British woman to become Hollywood’s most powerful studio executive and current chairman of NBCUniversal Entertainment—sits down with Emma Grede to explore the unlikely and inspiring journey from an artistic, unconventional childhood on England’s Isle of Wight to reshaping blockbuster franchises and industry culture in America. Their conversation unpacks lessons in resilience, risk-taking, leadership, mentorship, failure, and authenticity. Designed for anyone aspiring to advance in their field or lead with impact, this episode teems with actionable insights and Donna’s signature candor.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Early Life & Building Resilience

• Isle of Wight roots: Donna grew up in an unconventional, artsy, health-conscious family, often feeling like the “odd one out,” but developed resilience through difference and adversity.
  • "I think I am the girl least likely to succeed, for sure." (03:53, Donna)
  • "I built up a lot of resilience during those years because I was teased a lot...we sort of went against the grain." (04:49, Donna)
• Importance of Art and Imagination: Fostered a lifelong love of storytelling and creative thinking through dance, reading, and family artistry.

2. The Leap to America and Hollywood

• Unplanned path:
  • No film school, no family in the industry. Came to LA on a whim in her early 20s after working in a London health club and being encouraged by a friend.
  • "I just knew that I wasn't on the right path...I have to do this." (08:22, Donna)
• First Impressions:
  • Culture shock upon arrival (the scale, portion sizes, LA eccentricities).
  • "I'd never been to America before...I couldn't believe how big everything was." (08:38, Donna)
• Breaking in:
  • First job: Unpaid intern for a tough producer (friend of a friend).
  • Early lesson: Success in Hollywood is built on relationships and resilience in the face of tough personalities.
  • "She taught me the Rolodex...My industry is a people industry, and it is very much a who do you know?" (10:24, Donna)

3. Grit, Work Ethic & Seizing Opportunity

• Juggling hustles: Donna worked night shifts as a hostess at the legendary Roxbury nightclub while building her film industry chops by day.
• Naivety & Bravery as Assets:
  • "We were just ballsy. We had nothing to lose...We thought we were fabulous." (14:04, Donna)
  • "Naivety is a superpower at a certain point in your career." (14:19, Emma)
• Core leadership lessons:
  • Early Hollywood was hyper-competitive and relentless. Being willing to do everything and outwork others was necessary.
  • "If it meant having to drive all over town to deliver scripts to executives at 10 o' clock at night, that's what you did." (15:59, Donna)

4. The Studio Climb & Greenlighting Hits

• Breaking through at New Line Cinema:
  • First major credit came with Austin Powers (“the first movie I was a junior executive, the second I ran the project”—17:49, Donna)
  • "It was a difficult film. Every studio passed on it...We all saw something in it that other people missed." (18:20, Donna)
• Absence of early mentors:
  • Donna took initiative to scale mentorship for others now:
    • "I didn't have a mentor…I think one of the reasons why I'm so focused on mentorship as something I can use my platform to do is because I didn't have one." (18:41, Donna)

5. Leadership Philosophies & Success at Universal

• Advocacy for ‘niche’ (but truly underserved) audiences:
  • "Women were being underserved in the marketplace, and I think I uniquely understood that because I am one." (23:55, Donna)
  • Hits like Mamma Mia, Girls Trip, Bridesmaids arose from recognizing market “white space.”
• Building a Creative-Friendly, Stable Culture:
  • Attracts A-list talent (Chris Meledandri, Jason Blum, Chris Nolan) by offering stability, decency, and minimal politics.
    • "Decency is a superpower. It is not a weakness...Kindness, decency...are viewed as weaknesses. They're not. It's much harder to stand in your integrity and your truths and your authenticity." (27:57, Donna)
• Collaborative consensus-building:
  • "I'm a big believer in building consensus along the way…If you can avoid it, not walking into the room with decisions already made, even if you already know in your gut." (33:39, Donna)
• Empathy and Preparation:
  • “You can really hold yourself in your power and you can wait for the right moment….never go into a room unprepared. The more prepared you are, the more confidence you're going to have.” (58:18, Donna)

6. Weathering Crises & Navigating Change

• Pandemic leadership:
  • Made unpopular but prescient decisions (moved Fast & Furious release early in COVID, trusted gut over prevailing optimism).
  • "I walked out of that meeting and I went to the bathroom, I had to literally give myself the talk in the mirror. I was that cliche." (33:05, Donna)
• Risk-taking Mindset:
  • Does not view bold decisions as risks if guided by instinct and integrity:
    • "I think I've never looked at them at risk as risks…I don't see them as risks going in." (43:07, Donna)
• Learning from Failure:
  • "Adversity is our greatest teacher…in most times I've made a mistake…Oh, boy, I did something against my intuition and my instinct." (40:09/41:50, Donna)

7. On Being a Woman in Power

• Industry impact:
  • Only woman among Fortune’s most powerful women—her leadership at Universal led to its most profitable decade.
  • "Pretty much everyone else is a man and you are a British woman…to me, that is so huge.” (23:04, Emma)
• On MeToo & Community:
  • Real progress made, particularly in women’s solidarity.
  • "A lot of women came together as a community. That had not happened before….we broke down a lot of barriers." (55:07, Donna)
• Finding Voice and Confidence:
  • Learned to hold her own among male executives by listening:
    • "You don't need to be the loudest person in the room. You don't need to speak until you really have something to…I'm a listener…you learn so much by listening." (57:12/57:51, Donna)
  • Advocates for community and resilience for women and minorities entering fields where they may be the “only one.”

8. Work-Life Reflection

• Motherhood:
  • Became a parent later in life after health struggles; values being an older, more grounded mother.
  • Encourages young women to proactively plan for a family as intentionally as they do their careers.
• On Not Having It All:
  • "Something's gotta give. You can't do it all at the same time." (62:34, Donna)

9. Adapting to the Future

• Industry change:
  • Embraces streaming, AI, evolving consumer behavior; sees storytelling as a human, timeless craft.
  • "AI is going to come in and change the game...But I'm a big believer in the human element...I'm just excited to see where it goes." (73:52, Donna)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Donna Langley on Decency in Leadership:
  • "Decency is a superpower. It is not a weakness...It's much harder to stand in your integrity and your truths and your authenticity than not." (27:57)
• On Making Unpopular Decisions:
  • "Sometimes you have to make an unpopular decision...I remember during the pandemic...I started moving our films from the release calendar...It was a big boo." (32:28/33:07)
• Advice for Aspiring Leaders:
  • "Empathy and compassion...putting yourself in somebody else's shoes for a moment to say, I'm walking in with this idea. I want that person to buy into this idea...What is it going to take for that person to buy in?" (37:17)
• On Failure and Intuition:
  • "It always comes down to, oh, boy, I did something against my intuition and my instinct." (41:50)
• On Navigating a Male-Dominated Industry:
  • "You don't need to be the loudest person in the room. I'm a listener. You learn so much by listening." (57:12/57:51)
• On Friendship and Longevity:
  • "I've come to really treasure my friendships and my close relationships...I really treasure the people in my life who I know I can count on, who are there for me." (79:02, Donna)
• On the American Dream:
  • "I don't think I would have been able to do what I have done in the UK...The journey is just something that can only happen [in America]." (51:06, Donna)
• On Career Advice for the Next Generation:
  • "Jump in two feet first. Go work anywhere...learn as much as you can as fast as you can. Be very fluid." (68:15, Donna)
  • On her assistant Juliet: "The job I want hasn't been created." (69:09, Juliet via Donna)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:53] Donna's childhood on the Isle of Wight, roots of resilience
• [08:22] Decision to leave for Los Angeles, early risk-taking
• [10:24] Lessons from unpaid internship, importance of relationships in Hollywood
• [14:04] Early work ethos: Naivety and hustle as superpowers
• [17:49] First major break: Austin Powers at New Line Cinema
• [18:41] Focus on mentorship, inspired by her lack of early mentors
• [23:55] Championing content for underserved (especially female) audiences
• [27:57] Leadership tenets: Decency as a superpower
• [33:39] Building consensus, leading major changes during the pandemic
• [41:50] Failure analysis: the centrality of gut instinct and accountability
• [43:07] On not viewing big creative bets as “risks”
• [51:06] Reflections on the American Dream vs. UK career pathways
• [55:07] Post-MeToo: progress in solidarity and industry for women
• [57:12] Finding confidence in male-dominated rooms, the art of listening
• [62:34] Parenthood, timing, and women’s career planning
• [73:52] Embracing industry change, the future of storytelling with AI and streaming
• [77:43] Life-changing book: Love in the Time of Cholera
• [79:02] Shift in values: from seeking credit to treasuring relationships

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Additional Rapid-Fire Insights

• Morning routine: English breakfast tea with milk and sugar (75:54)
• Nightly ritual: Kisses sons goodnight, even though they now stay up later (76:07)
• Current aspirations: Continued success, working with top talent, staying grounded with family (76:44/76:54)
• Book that changed her life: Love in the Time of Cholera (77:43)
• What she values less now: Ego and public credit (78:20)
• What she values more now: Deep friendships and trusted relationships (79:02)
• Music tastes: Eclectic—a true fan of ABBA and 90s rap; Straight Outta Compton and Kendrick Lamar (71:05)
• Wellness: Pilates, hiking, reading scripts (72:10/72:52)

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Tone & Reflection

The tone is warm, candid, and insightful—mixing classic British understatement with matter-of-fact wisdom and humor. Donna Langley’s leadership is defined by empathy, resilience, consensus-building, and an unwavering belief in creative and personal integrity—essential lessons for both aspiring and established leaders.

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For anyone looking to build a remarkable career or lead with authenticity, this episode is packed with practical examples, empowering advice, and memorable dialogue from one of Hollywood’s most quietly influential executives.

Transcript

[Emma Greed]

Today on the Aspire Podcast. In her first ever podcast interview, Dame Donna Langley, chairman of NBCUniversal Entertainment, opens up about the decisions, risks and resilience behind her unprecedented Hollywood journey. From modest roots in England to shaping blockbuster hits like Oppenheimer, Wicked, and Get out, donna shares the lessons behind her extraordinary rise. Running a business is hard enough. You don't need your payment system slowing you down. That's why I love Square. There's this bakery I love that makes the best sourdough and every time I check out, it's so fast and so seamless. You tap your card, grab the loaf and off you are out the door. That's the magic of Square. Smart, easy to use tools that just work. The interface is so intuitive you can start using it it right away. No manuals, no tech headaches, and it's built to fit any business, whether you're running a coffee cart, a clothing boutique or a beauty salon. Everything's in one place. Payments, inventory, staff, schedules, invoices, you name it. And as your business grows, you can add on what you need like loyalty programs or payroll. Square keeps up so you don't have to slow down. Get everything you need to run and grow your business without any long term commitments. And why wait? Right now you can get up to $200 off square hardware at square.com go aspire that's square s q U-A-R-E.com g o aspire a s p I R E Run your business smarter with Square. Get started today. I used to think I needed a full drawer of makeup and at least 20 minutes to look presentable in the morning. But then I tried Merit and now I'm done in five minutes. Merit is a minimalist beauty brand that's made to simplify your routine. It's for people who want to feel put together without spending a ton of time or energy. Their products are clean, vegan, and so easy to use you genuinely can't mess them up, even half asleep. Lately I've been reaching for Flush Balm every morning. It gives me the most natural looking flush and it blends like a dream. The Minimalist is another go to. It's part foundation, part concealer and it evens out my skin in seconds without feeling heavy. And great skin serum. My skin just looks better and more hydrated every time I use it. Merit has made my mornings feel less rushed and more effortless, which I didn't really think was possible. It's time to simplify your morning. Head to meritbeauty.com and get their signature makeup bag, free with your first order. Donna Langley, I'm so happy to have you here today. Thank you.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Thank you. I am very honored to be here.

[Emma Greed]

Well, I'm especially honored because I heard that this could well be your first podcast interview.

[Dame Donna Langley]

It is my first podcast.

[Emma Greed]

Thank you for saving it for me.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yes. So thank you for bringing me into, you know, the new millennium.

[Emma Greed]

As if you needed to. I mean, I have to say, I have been so excited to speak to you because the whole point of this podcast is for me to speak to people that I really aspire to, and your career is. I mean, it's almost the stuff of a movie. And I really want to make sure that we cover everything, because when I've been doing my research on you, there's kind of nothing in your, you know, past that says that you would end up being where you are today. You didn't study at film school. You don't have a family that's in entertainment. And in fact, I like to think of you as, like, Queen of Hollywood, most powerful woman in Hollywood. But you, you were born in London and raised in the Isle of Wight. Yes. So you have to take me back to the very, very beginning so we can all understand where you came from.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Well, I think I am the girl least likely to succeed, for sure.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Going all the way back to the beginning. So, like you said, I grew up on the Isle of Wight, which, for.

[Emma Greed]

Those that don't know, I mean, the Isle of Wight is this speck at the bottom of England.

[Dame Donna Langley]

It broke off from the rest of the world. It kind of.

[Emma Greed]

It broke off. It's all on its own. It's a pretty isolated place. I mean, I grew up knowing the Isle of Wight because when you get to the end of elementary school or junior school, as we say in England, the big fifth grade trip was to the Isle of Wight. So we were always trying to work to get to the Isle of Wight, but we might be the only people.

[Dame Donna Langley]

That were working together, without question. So my parents moved us to the Isle of Wight when I was 7. My dad worked in London, and my mom was a little bit of a hippie, a little bit ahead of her time. And so I grew up in a fairly unconventional household. She was a vegetarian before anyone was vegetarian. We were organic and macrobiotic before anybody else was really.

[Emma Greed]

Back in that.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Back in those days, yes. Brown bread sandwiches at school. And I think I built up a lot of resilience during those years because I was teased a lot. You know, again, we sort of went against the grain. But my grandparents were artists, and so I grew up around the arts and with a real appreciation for them. I grew up reading. I was a dancer. So I grew up a little bit. Not so much with my head in the clouds, but certainly with a very active imagination. And I think having the freedom of growing up in a really small environment where everything was safe. You didn't lock your doors, you could walk from one end of the island to the other. Practically everyone knew everyone. You know, I remember one day, the bus didn't come, and I was crying at the bus stop, and a lady stopped and I got in a car and she took me home, you know.

[Emma Greed]

So those were the days.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Those were the days.

[Emma Greed]

The good old days.

[Dame Donna Langley]

The good old days. But I think that environment really did foster in me this kind of love of storytelling and. And also resilience, I think, because, again, we were a bit odd man out, I would say, as a family.

[Emma Greed]

So talk to me about, where did you go from the Isle of Wight? At some point you ended up in London, right?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah. Yes, yes, yes. So I did the big move. I had a boyfriend I met on the Isle of Wight that was working in London. Exactly.

[Emma Greed]

Always.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Right. It's always that. A love interest involved in the story. I went to college in Kent, and after college, I went to London. It was sort of. It was always inevitable that I was going to leave the island. There was never a plan to stay. It was, in fact, my whole childhood, I think, was plotting for the day that I would leave. And I left when I was 17, and I never went back. I mean, I went back. My mom passed away a year and a half ago. That's okay. But my dad is there and my sister's there.

[Emma Greed]

No. So you do actually go back to the island?

[Dame Donna Langley]

I do. I do. And I take my kids, which is really incredible because so many of the things. My old stomping grounds are still there, and I'm able to show my kids.

[Emma Greed]

It is a place that's frozen in time. I have to say, in the most lovely way. You know, it feels. It's beautiful. And it's just. You must have so many memories that come back to when you take your kids there.

[Dame Donna Langley]

I do. It is a beautiful place. And it was very grounding, you know, to grow up somewhere like that.

[Emma Greed]

So you get to London and then what happens? Well, did you just dance around London and go to all the clubs? Please tell me that's what you were doing.

[Dame Donna Langley]

You know, I lived in northwest London, so I was all part of that Camden Crew and, you know, going to all of those great live music venues and having a really great time. But to cut a long story short. Cause this could take, you know, this could be a whole series of podcasts if I told you the whole story, but met my best friend, who is still my best friend, who lives here in la.

[Emma Greed]

Is she really?

[Dame Donna Langley]

She's still. Yep. We moved here together. So she had been living in Los Angeles on and off since she was 17.

[Emma Greed]

Right.

[Dame Donna Langley]

She was the girlfriend of a very prominent music manager. One day she plopped on my bed and said, I think we should go to la.

[Emma Greed]

And you said.

[Dame Donna Langley]

And I said, okay, let's go. Yeah.

[Emma Greed]

And had you dreamed of moving to America?

[Dame Donna Langley]

No, not at all.

[Emma Greed]

You just thought, why not?

[Dame Donna Langley]

I just knew that I wasn't on the right path. I was working in the health industry at that point in a health club. And I could have had a really good career doing that. I was actually being offered a junior manager job. And when I quit, my then boss was very upset with me that I wasn't continuing on that journey. I remember the speech he gave me, you have a great career path ahead of you. Why are you throwing it all away? And I kind of said, I don't know, but I have to. I have to do this.

[Emma Greed]

I've got to go.

[Dame Donna Langley]

I've got to figure out. I've got to go.

[Emma Greed]

How old are you at this point?

[Dame Donna Langley]

22.

[Emma Greed]

So at 22, you take yourself with just, you know, you've come out of college and you take yourself to Los Angeles and just paint the picture for me. Like, what is LA at that point in time?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Oh, my goodness. Well, good old Wild west is what I'm imagining. The Wild West. I'd never been to America before. I'd only traveled in Europe a little bit at that point in my life. And so I got here and I couldn't believe how big everything was. The roads, the food portions.

[Emma Greed]

Isn't that the biggest thing, the dream? English people, you get a plate and you're like, is this four people still or is it just mine?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Why is this sandwich so big?

[Emma Greed]

Yeah, why is a sandwich so big?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Why are there four slices of bread instead of two?

[Emma Greed]

Yeah. And why are there five lanes on the freeway instead of three? Like, what is happening here?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Exactly. I remember driving from the airport into West Hollywood where we were staying, and driving past the donut shop that's got the big giant plastic donut on the top. And again, like, wow, okay. They like donuts here in America. And why is there a big Giant plastic donut on the top of that roof. It was definitely, you know, I'm not in Kansas anymore.

[Emma Greed]

You're not in Kansas anymore.

[Dame Donna Langley]

But I had a wonderful time and I was very fortunate in that my friend was able to introduce me to some people who were in the industry. And very quickly I caught the bug. I went home and, you know, had to go backwards and forwards a little bit until I was able to figure out how I could actually train and work here. And my first job was an unpaid internship for a producer.

[Emma Greed]

Where did you meet the producer?

[Dame Donna Langley]

She was a friend of my friend.

[Emma Greed]

Amazing.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yes. And she offered me an unpaid internship role, but it was really great. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, just stepping into an industry. And she was tough. She taught me so much. Again, that word resilience is gonna come up a lot.

[Emma Greed]

Well, because people were tough in a different way back in those days. Right. There was so much more room for you to just be tough and you had to take it.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Exactly, exactly. But I learned as well as how to deal with that. And with a personality like that, I also. She taught me the Rolodex. She taught me everybody who was somebody in town. My industry is a people industry, and it is very much a who do you know?

[Emma Greed]

Yeah. And I learned that very, very early coming to la. My first business failed miserably in la. And years later, when I did the post mortem, I realized that I completely misunderstood the idea of community in la and that everything is done via this community that either comes, like, because you were born here and you, you know, you went to school and all your people are here, or you forge this community. And I was somewhat on the outskirts of it and thinking, well, why am I failing? It's like, that's what you missed, Emma. LA more than anything. The business is done all based on the community.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Very much so. Yes, it is. It's a relationship.

[Emma Greed]

Still today.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Still today, it's a relationship which you.

[Emma Greed]

Are right at the epicenter of. So we'll get there. So you take this job as an intern and you're working, like, as a production assistant.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah.

[Emma Greed]

So what did that entail at the time?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Oh, good Lord.

[Emma Greed]

Or I should say, what didn't that entail at the time, exactly?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Well, back then, it was really funny. I mean, you know, your listeners will really laugh at this because she had a really bad word processor. It wasn't a Mac, you know, it was just that really complicated Microsoft thing with all the things. And I'd been working on typewriter up until that point, I hadn't even graduated into a word processor. So I had to learn that.

[Emma Greed]

What year is this, roughly?

[Dame Donna Langley]

This would have been 92, I think. 92 or 93. So back then, people would dictate their to do list and leave it on the voicemail. I mean, could you imagine? No, no, no.

[Emma Greed]

Like, so convoluted. Yeah, that's exactly what.

[Dame Donna Langley]

So you had to get up at the crack of dawn to be able to transcribe the to do list, which was about five miles long. And then before you had a chance to do that, she was already on the phone calling, have you done this? Have you done that? You haven't done this yet. You haven't done that yet. Get this person on the phone. Get that person on the phone. So this idea of you had to be 20 steps ahead, which basically meant you had to get up at 5 in.

[Emma Greed]

And you did that. But were you happily getting up at five in the morning and happily attacking these staff? Get me out of here.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah. No, I wanted to. I wanted to crack the code. I really wanted to figure it out.

[Emma Greed]

That's incredible. Yeah, I mean, it really is incredible. So how long do you stay interning and working, like, assistant jobs, essentially?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Well, from there I got a paid assistant job and one thing led to another and.

[Emma Greed]

Didn't you work at a nightclub at some point? I worked at the Roxbury, which is like a legendary.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Legendary. Back in those days, legendary nightclub. Everybody who was anybody came to the Roxbury. They made a film about it called Night at the Roxbury. I was the hostess in the restaurant, which was hands down the best job because it meant, you know, it was a fairly short shift. The restaurant closed at midnight and everybody wanted a table. So everyone had to be nice.

[Emma Greed]

You were the key to the kingdom. I love it. I love it. That's the power in la. Straight out the gate.

[Dame Donna Langley]

A lot of fun.

[Emma Greed]

So you did that, like, at night and then you would work your production job during the day.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah.

[Emma Greed]

Okay. And then, like, first big break. Where does it all start falling into place and making sense?

[Dame Donna Langley]

First big break is I went to work at a studio called New Line Cinema. Oh, yeah. Which still exists. It's part of Warner Brothers. But I'd actually met the guy who was, at the time, the president of production. He was the youngest president of production, I think, ever, in the history of the movie industry. So he didn't know anything. And we met at the restaurant I was working at and he offered me a job.

[Emma Greed]

What did he see in you? Like, what was it, do you think that landed in.

[Dame Donna Langley]

I think he saw in me and my friend that we were just. We were just ballsy. We were just ballsy. We had nothing to lose, really. And we were, you know, we were slightly idiotic and naive. We thought we were fabulous.

[Emma Greed]

Naivety is a superpower at a certain.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Point in your career, isn't it?

[Emma Greed]

It is, but I think there's a lot to be said of making moves in your 20s because you don't have anything to lose. And, you know, I remember working so hard in my 20s, working ridiculous. And my mom and certain family members would say to me, emma, like, why are you doing this? Why are you killing yourself? And I would say, well, why not? Like, I have nothing else to do. And this is the time in my life. I don't have a mortgage, I don't have any kids. I have no responsibilities. Like, I might as well. But I feel like you could separate my friends. I always say this. Those that killed themselves in the 20s and those that maybe partied a bit too much. And now that we're in our 40s, there's two very distinct groups. There's a time and a place to kill yourself and go half.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah. One of the things I loved about the community that I met, I ended up sort of running around with when I moved here was that we all had the shared work ethic. We all wanted the same thing. And I'm still friends to this day with many people that I worked with back in those days. Yeah.

[Emma Greed]

And what did that work ethic look like back then? Cause I always feel like people just worked in a different way 20, 30 years ago.

[Dame Donna Langley]

I think it was driven by the power base of the industry was, you know, the studio heads and the agents. And if you were in that periphery, you had to work hard because if you didn't, you would lose your job and somebody else would be there to take it from you. Right. So it was hyper competitive. And it was a little like my first job, the unpaid internship. You were just prepared to do whatever you needed to do to get the job done. I mean, within reason, obviously.

[Emma Greed]

Totally. But you did it. You just.

[Dame Donna Langley]

But you did it. And if it meant having to drive all over town to deliver scripts to executives at 10 o' clock at night, that's what you did. Yeah.

[Emma Greed]

You just did it. Did you have an end goal in mind? Were you like, one day I'll be.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Well, it wasn't what I do now, that's for sure. I actually remember I was still working At New Line. And a bunch of us were there in our 20s and we were all going around the circle like, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I think three out of the five of us said studio head. I think two of them became studio heads or thereabouts. You know. And then I was just the one who was like, no, I'm not sure I'm gonna do that. I think I wanna make independent films. I think after I do this, I might like to make a documentary. I wasn't a dreamer, but I was always looking to take the part that was the one less traveled.

[Emma Greed]

Yes. But that is a through line in your career. And I really wanna talk about that a lot because I think it's one of the things that has made you not just so successful, but so interesting within your success. But before I go there, so you're at New Line at this point and you are working like you've got your first big break and just talk me through, like, what happens over the next kind of few years for you.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah. So you know, the goal when you're in our industry at that time of your career, when you're very early, when you're making the transition from an assistant desk to a junior executive, the goal is to have a film picked for Green Light to be made that you had something to do with that you were an advocate of. And the first one I was involved with that happened was Austin Powers.

[Emma Greed]

Oh, wow.

[Dame Donna Langley]

And that was my first big break. And I was a junior executive on the first movie. And on the second movie, I jumped up to be the senior executive and I ran that whole project.

[Emma Greed]

I have to say, that's a little bit shocking. Austin Powers, why were you so passionate about Austin Powers?

[Dame Donna Langley]

I know, it's hilarious. Well, I love comedy. I do love comedy. And I think my English roots helped me understand what was really funny about that. You know, a lot of Mike Myers. He's the star of the film and the producer and the real brains behind it. You know, a lot. He's Canadian, English. And so a lot of his references in that were actually English. Peter Sellers, James Bond.

[Emma Greed]

So you just got it. You got an intrinsic understanding of the funny bits.

[Dame Donna Langley]

And it was a difficult film. Every studio passed on it and. Except for ours, because that's who we were at that time. We were making things that other people weren't making, which made it a lot of fun. But, yeah, I think we all saw something in it that other people missed.

[Emma Greed]

Did you have a significant mentor or somebody that was championing you at that time?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Not really. I was having this conversation with somebody yesterday. I think one of the reasons why I'm so focused on mentorship as something I can use my platform to do is because I didn't have a mentor. There was certainly people in my life who were helpful at certain periods of time, but I didn't know that that role existed. So you didn't have that either?

[Emma Greed]

No. And it's so interesting because I feel very much the same as you that now that I understand it and I know the power of it, I really. I want to be able to help as many people as possible. It was one of the reasons to start this podcast. And I said to you, I want to scale mentorship. And that's why in speaking to you and understanding your career and the moves that you've made and what you do, it's so important. Cause you can't be what you don't see. And if you don't know, you know, the path to being a studio head or how you get those jobs or what the critical points in your career are, then, like, how would you ever figure that stuff out, exactly?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Well, it takes a lot longer, doesn't it? It takes a lot longer. So you have to learn by trial and error.

[Emma Greed]

And so how long do you stay at New Line? Because your career has been a series of incredible moves and incredible companies, but you've obviously, you had to move and figure out, like, what you were gonna do next.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah. So I was at New Line for eight years, and it ran its course. It got to a point where, you know, in the corporate world and New Line was a scrappy, mini major studio, we were doing great things, but inevitably, they're all part of big corporations. And the inevitability, I believe, in big corporations is change.

[Emma Greed]

Yes.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Things happen. People come, people go. Leadership changes, the times change. It's very cyclical. And so New Line became a very different kind of company. And I left right before it got bought by WarnerMedia and AT&T. I think at that time, I can't even remember, honestly, but I was really glad that I kind of got out. I got out at the right time. I had a great time there. I learned a lot. It was really like an apprenticeship for me. But I was ready to go and work at a bigger studio and have a different experience, and that's what I did. And I went to Universal.

[Emma Greed]

Were you poached out of that job or did you were. That's so incredible. Okay, I have to read this part because there's just I don't wanna mess it up. So you are very, very clearly one of the most influential and powerful executives in the entertainment industry. Just some of your projects. Oppenheimer, Get Out, Straight out of Compton, Wicked. Before that you oversaw franchises like Fast and the Furious, Despicable Me, my kids favorite. Thank you, Jurassic World, my bigger kid's and Born. Actually you're like my family favorite. My husband loves that. But you were also named one of Fortune's most powerful women very recently and under your leadership, which I think is like the most incredible part, Universal has had the biggest success in its century long history. So some people might say you have the Midas touch. But I wonder how you think about that when you hear all of that.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Oh my goodness.

[Emma Greed]

Well, don't be too British.

[Dame Donna Langley]

I won't be. I won't be. You'll make sure I'm not. No, look, it is really good to reflect back and it is fun to hear all of those titles read aloud. And of course it does take a village. There's been many people I've collaborated with and I have an incredible team. So we should talk about that too. It has been a great run.

[Emma Greed]

We have had a. I mean, that's an understatement. Yeah, it's been like a run like no one else. I mean.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah. For more than a decade, which is quite unheard of. I'm just in the middle of reading Barry Diller's book and.

[Emma Greed]

Isn't it good?

[Dame Donna Langley]

So great.

[Emma Greed]

It's so good.

[Dame Donna Langley]

I highly recommend it. Wouldn't you recommend it?

[Emma Greed]

I honestly would. I'm really, I'm a couple of chapters in. But I mean, I personally think Barry's incredible.

[Dame Donna Langley]

It gets books he's giving you.

[Emma Greed]

Amazing.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah, it's a really great how to. You know, I do think looking back, reflecting, to be able to understand kind of the path forward and the path ahead is sometimes a really good tool. Yes. But just listening to him talking about his run at Paramount, it actually reminds me very similarly of what we've been up to. You know, the technology changes are happening, we've gone through the pandemic, we've gone through all of this change and disruption in our industry and we've been able to not just survive, but thrive throughout all of that. And so reflecting on how we've done that and what's made that possible, it's a good thing to do.

[Emma Greed]

It's a hugely good thing. I mean, what I would say to you, just to blow your trumpet a little bit for you, is that pretty much everyone else is a man and you are a British woman, like. But, you know, to me, that is so huge. And I wonder, when you look at your career now, how much of your success you can attribute to being a woman. Because I imagine that your approach, not just to leadership, but to how you run a company, run a division, how you manage a board, like all of the things that you've been through, women approach that very, very differently. And so is there any of your success that you can directly attribute to being a woman?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah, I think there's a couple of different ways to look at that. One is certainly the things that I've advocated for the movies that I've wanted us to be involved with. So I think about Mamma Mia. You know, what a hit, right?

[Emma Greed]

What a hit.

[Dame Donna Langley]

What a hit. And first of all, that was driven by my deep love of abba. I love ABBA so much, and I have loved ABBA since I was tiny. But also it was being able to look out there in the marketplace and see there was a white space. Women were being underserved in the marketplace. And I think I uniquely understood that because I am one. Same thing with Girls Trip. When we made Girls Trip with.

[Emma Greed]

Oh, that was such a good one, Parker.

[Dame Donna Langley]

It was a good one.

[Emma Greed]

It felt like a first of its kind female comedy.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Right. Because it was a first of its kind, you know, and people had attempted things before, but not like that.

[Emma Greed]

But it feels to me like you made a career out of the niches. Like, you've been able to see, like, where these niche audiences might be and yet exploit them in a different way. Because they're not niche at all.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah, exactly. And again, it's about seeing that white space. Where is there a gap? Where is there a need for something to be? I always say it's really fun to give the audience something that they had no idea that they were waiting for. And again, Girls Trip was a really good example of that. Same with Bridesmaids.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah, we did. If you'd have asked. If you asked me, Emma, do you wanna go and see, like, a female comedy? I'd be like, no. But then when I saw it, I was like, I can't get enough of. This is amazing.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Exactly. So then that goes to who you collaborate with, who you choose to go and make something like that.

[Emma Greed]

Well, because you're seen as someone who's very much like the friend or the champion of the creative. So how. What is it about you and your taste level or your relationships that makes you so good at what you do?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Well, I love Experts in the field. Right. When I look at animation and you mentioned Despicable Me, so Chris Meledondri is an absolute expert in the field of animation. Now, I'm not responsible for him being at university. It happened before me. But we've worked together very closely for 15 years. I mean, if you think about it, 15 years ago, there was no such thing as a minion. It didn't exist.

[Emma Greed]

I don't remember the time before Minions.

[Dame Donna Langley]

You probably don't. If you have children, you don't have to. Every day there's a minion of some kind and what he's done in the animation space. And he rivals now both Disney and Pixar, which were the two dominant brands. And we also own DreamWorks Animation, Shrek and Puss in Boots and things like that. But, you know, picking collaborators who are really good at what they do. Not just really good, they're actually the best at what they do. Same with Jason Blum in the horror space. He's an incredible horror producer, filmmaker. And I don't like horror movies. I don't like watching them and I don't even like watching the trailers. So, you know, going and finding somebody who loves all of that and excels at it and, you know, bringing them into the company to do their best work with us again, it's sort of another pillar and I think another way that we've managed to be very successful.

[Emma Greed]

But it is a huge part of what you do. You know, I read about Christopher Nolan coming over to Universal from another studio to do Oppenheimer and I wonder what your secret is to making big name talent want to work with you.

[Dame Donna Langley]

It's a lot to do with stability. Right. If you think about making a movie or making a TV show, making anything you want to do it with, and for people who know what they're doing, you can look at the organization and see real stability. You can sort of look through it and if you ask yourself the question, you know, is this a decent group of people? Are these people who work with integrity, do they work well together? Is there sort of minimal politics? That's the kind of environment that we've worked really hard to create and to foster.

[Emma Greed]

Because it's not very Hollywood, is it? Because when I think about Hollywood, I think chaos, craziness, you know, not stable.

[Dame Donna Langley]

At all, and instability.

[Emma Greed]

Yes.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah. So I think we've been able to maintain our stability with a really strong management team and a good culture. And culture does come from it's top down. Right?

[Emma Greed]

Culture comes from the top. I can agree with you more. What is it that. What is the skill that you've cultivated to make people comfortable and make them be able to see that?

[Dame Donna Langley]

I mean, look, I think. I think tenets of leadership are first and foremost that decency is a superpower. It is not a weakness. And I think in certain industries, kindness, decency, these are words that are frowned upon, right? They are viewed as weaknesses. They're not. It is much harder to make the right decision than the wrong one. It's much harder to stand in your integrity and your truths and your authenticity than not.

[Emma Greed]

I didn't start a business just to sell products. I started businesses to solve problems that I saw in the world. From jeans that could fit every woman to the shapewear you need when that dress slit is just a touch too high. I wanted to make products that people needed and stuff I could seriously scale into global businesses. That mission has always been at the heart of everything I've built. And when it came time to bring that mission to life, Shopify was the platform that made it real. It helped me go from idea to impact quickly professionally and without needing a full team. Shopify gave me the tools to launch with purpose and scale, with confidence, I could customize my storefront to reflect my brand, manage sales across every channel, and track performance all in one place. And as things grew, Shopify kept evolving with me. I remember the day we launched Good American like it was yesterday and we had so much traffic. I don't think we would have survived without the backend infrastructure that only Shopify could provide in order to handle. That was so much bigger than we ever imagined. That's what makes it so powerful. It's built to support you at every stage. Whether you're just starting out or scaling a business that means something to you, Shopify makes it possible. This is your sign. Start your entrepreneurial journey now with shopify.com aspire. If you're like me, you love a good deal. And Macy's is delivering big time for Labor Day. It's their Labor Day sale and you can score 25 to 60% off across the board. Now's the perfect time to close out summer with a win and get a head start on fall. Refresh your wardrobe with 25 to 40% off men's, women's and activewear or grab 30 to 40% off men's shoes. Think sneakers, boat shoes and all the go to brands for your home. Macy's has 50 to 65% off hotel collection bedding. Major deals on Sealy Posturepegic mattresses plus your choice of a free box spring or adjustable bed place. And if you've been eyeing a new couch, don't miss the Radley fabric sectional for $2,179, or the sofa for just $789. You'll also find 30 to 50% off women's shoes, 30 to 40% off Levi's, 40 to 70% off fine jewelry, and 30% off select beauty from Mac Shiseido and Anastasia Beverly Hills. The Macy's labor day sale runs August 27th through September 1st. Shop now at macy's.com or install door. Yeah, and I feel like that's part of the reason you standing in your integrity, that you can champion creatives and that you get to kind of play in these kind of niche lanes where popular wisdom might tell you that that's not gonna be a hit or it's not gonna be great. Can you give me an example of when you've had, like, real conviction about something that everyone else has been like, this ain't a hit.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Mamma mia. Was that. And, you know, look, it's one of the inevitabilities of leadership, as you well know. Sometimes you have to make an unpopular decision. I remember during the pandemic, do you remember when everyone was talking about it only lasting for two weeks?

[Emma Greed]

Oh, yeah. I remember those days.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Everyone left their coats. I'll see you in two weeks. Yeah, everybody left all that crap all over their workspace, you know, Cause, oh, we'll be back in two weeks. And I was like, no, no, no, we're not going to be back in two weeks. It might be two years.

[Emma Greed]

Did you understand that that was going to be the shutdown of your industry? Like, did you get that?

[Dame Donna Langley]

I did. I did. I understood it. Yeah. I had enough wisdom and just foresight and also just speaking to people all over the world. We had an office in China and we were just, you know, you could see it coming.

[Emma Greed]

How do you even prepare for something like that? How do you get everybody? Because again, we're talking. You preside over. Is it thousands of people? There's, like, so many people globally. So when you have to be the person that is delivering that message, and yet there's such uncertainty. Like, what did you do?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Well, one of the things that I insisted that we did that was very unpopular is I started moving our films from the release calendar, right? So we always date our films a year or, you know, six months, years in advance. And we had. I remember it, having a conversation about Fast and Furious, right? Fast and Furious was set to come out that summer. Right. Remember, we all went home in March. It was a summer hit. And I said, we're moving it. We are going to move it to the end of the year. And then we thinking that you could.

[Emma Greed]

Then have a theater release.

[Dame Donna Langley]

That's right. And we'll see how it goes. We'll get to the summer, we'll reassess. And it was on point.

[Emma Greed]

Did everyone go boom, big boo.

[Dame Donna Langley]

It was a big boo. It was a big boo. And I walked out of that meeting and I went to the bathroom, I had to literally give myself the talk in the mirror. I was that cliche.

[Emma Greed]

So how do you get. Because of course, with a film like that, you've got, you know, I'm sure all sorts of forecasts. You have an idea of how much that should generate if you were taking it to theater. So how do you balance that level of risk taking? Like, how do you get comfortable with taking really big risks? And how, more importantly, how do you get everyone else comfortable around you?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah, well, launching a film or, you know, a TV show, but a film in particular is. Is like launching a new business every single time.

[Emma Greed]

Every time.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Right. You're bringing it to market. You're having to build your marketing campaign, your business model, your rationale, getting all your constituents on board with it. So there's a few different ways that you do it. I'm a big believer in building consensus along the way. If you can avoid it, not walking into the room with decisions already made, even if you already know in Donna.

[Emma Greed]

I'm gonna stop you there. Cause I need you to explain that to people. Cause this has been one of my biggest learnings. I remember, you know, when I was in my 20s, I'd walk into a board meeting and be like, ta da, surprise.

[Dame Donna Langley]

No, people don't like that.

[Emma Greed]

No, they don't. Funnily enough, I was like, oh, why didn't that go down well? Building consensus along the way. Will you just talk a little bit about what that means, what that looks like in your business? But I think it's a huge lesson for people.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah, I think it's applicable. Right. In a bunch of. Everywhere. In so many industries. So in our case, there's a big myth in our industry about green lighting a film. That's the decision to make it. How does a film get greenlit? Who has green light power? When does it happen? How does it happen? Well, the reality of it is, again, when you're getting ready to make a decision about a film, So a lot of different pieces that need to come into play. And it's an iterative process. It's a creative process, first and foremost, and that you have to then build a business model. And so in the case of a film, you need everybody from the people whose job it is to create the marketing campaign, whose job it is gonna be to oversee that film and make sure it stays on budget, it stays within the creative vision that we've all decided upon, the people who are gonna get it into the theaters, get it all around the world, be in charge of the dubbing. I mean, there's so many people who touch a film inside the studio, and so having an iterative process around that. So get used to it if you have time. It doesn't always work out that way, but generally speaking, it does. And so it's everything from just sort of getting them on board early with the idea of the script, you know, and what even is it? Who's gonna be in it, giving people a voice, you know. And again, it's not at the end of the day about making decisions by committee, because that's not helpful or healthy. And it's not a democracy. At the end of the day. There is one leader usually who is accountable, right, for making sure that everybody's got their salary paid and all. It's not a democracy. But sharing in that process, in that journey to get to the outcome is, I think it's a very healthy thing to do for an organization.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah, I think it's healthy, and I think that it really. There's something really powerful about it. And I think that anybody that's listening to this today, you know, and it can be something as big as green light in a whole movie. But if you boil that down to, I don't know, you have a big presentation in the office. The idea of, you know, you presenting that on the day and getting everybody that needs to buy in, bought in in that moment is very unlikely. And so the idea of going around and bringing in the different departments or the different individuals, and I guess, like, preceding some of your ideas and showing people and getting feedback and building consensus, like, it's so. And it took me a really long time to learn that, but it's probably one of the best things that I've learned because people feel they've come along the journey, that they're not, you know, completely sidelined by what you're saying, and that they've been part of that decision making. So it's a really important thing to learn.

[Dame Donna Langley]

I think that's a great example as well, using that kind of presentational moment. Because, you know, we've all been there. Right. And I think when what this process really is all about is as a colleague, as an employee, as a leader or boss, really, it's about empathy and compassion. You're putting yourself in somebody else's shoes for a moment to say, I'm walking in with this idea. I want that person to buy into this idea. And if you don't, go to the next point, which is, what is it going to take for that person to buy in? Meaning what does it mean to them? What is going to be put their ass on the line if they sign up to my idea?

[Emma Greed]

And you having an understanding of that actually makes your idea better, because you can solve for that issue before it's even an issue.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Exactly. Well, absolutely. It might make you refine your idea a little bit. Right. If you really can kind of go around the table and go, okay, what do they all need? And what are they all going to be? Because people, at the end of the day, really, we all do it like, you know, it's my livelihood. Am I going to be okay if I. I put myself on the line for this one?

[Emma Greed]

How have you developed your leadership skills over the years? Do you, like, do you have a coach or do you. Has it all been trial and error? Because you have a very. I think what you're known for in your industry is that you have an extremely empathetic leadership style. You lead with creative, you're seen as a friend to the creative. But people that work with you, under you, you know, your colleagues, you are seen as a very elegant, sympathetic, and empathetic leader. Where does that come from? Because your industry is not known for those people. I'm just saying your industry's known for the characters that were portrayed on Entourage, for example, or the studio. Yeah, exactly.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Recently, Yeah. I mean, I think going all the way back, my mom probably was my biggest coach. Really? But. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, I think a lot of it has been trial and error. And I do believe that I learned the best lessons when I made a mistake and. Or when something went wrong. I mean, really, adversity, I think, is our greatest teacher. Right. You know, I'm not. That's not an original thought, but there was a time in my career where I had a horrible boss. He was awful, and I behaved badly, and, you know, I tried to undermine him, and it impacted our output. We weren't making good creative decisions. No one was happy. You know, my colleagues were miserable because everyone was sniping. And bitching and complaining. Once that situation was over, it resolved itself, having nothing to do with me. I had to do some soul searching because, you know, I wasn't happy with who I was behaving that way. I was not my best self. I wasn't bringing my best self to the table.

[Emma Greed]

Were you just trying to do what you were seeing? Were you trying to be the same leader as you had?

[Dame Donna Langley]

I was trying to survive. And I thought I could beat him, and I thought the way to beat him was to undermine him, and it wasn't. You know, he. Again, he. All things were revealed in the end, and even if I had prevailed, I wouldn't have felt good about it, and I did not. That's not how I was raised. That's not how I raised my kids. It really went counter to my values. And so when I was faced with a similar situation another time, I behaved very differently.

[Emma Greed]

You did?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yep, I did. I took the high road.

[Emma Greed]

You did a Michelle Obama?

[Dame Donna Langley]

I did. I mean, what would Michelle do? Is a. You know, she always goes high. I always go high. As somebody else recently said, take the high road. There's less traffic up there. Which I think is a really good one, isn't it?

[Emma Greed]

Oh, I'm gonna remember that one. That's gonna come out like it was my own tomorrow.

[Dame Donna Langley]

But that was a big lesson for me. It was before I had kids. It was in that moment era of my career where I was just scrappy and I didn't know what I didn't know. And. Yeah, but it was a hard lesson to learn, or it was a good lesson to learn a very hard way.

[Emma Greed]

If I hear you right, you say that failures are completely inevitable, but how do you hold the failures without letting them eat at your confidence?

[Dame Donna Langley]

A couple of different ways to do that, I think is, first of all, you have to go very deep on why did something fail.

[Emma Greed]

And that can be hard, can't it?

[Dame Donna Langley]

It can be really hard because you have to be very honest with yourself. You have to take accountability.

[Emma Greed]

You do.

[Dame Donna Langley]

And what I have found, in most times, I've made a mistake if I take that moment of reflection. However it works, whether that's in a group setting with colleagues, or it's a long walk around a park, you know, or going and talking to somebody, it always comes down to, oh, boy, I did something against my intuition and my instinct.

[Emma Greed]

Yes.

[Dame Donna Langley]

It always comes back to that.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah. Are you somebody that leads with gut instincts, or are you, like, looking at data constantly and dissecting?

[Dame Donna Langley]

No, it's Gut instinct first, and then the data needs to conform to my instinct.

[Emma Greed]

Right, right. Do you ever go against the data.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Just a different way of telling a story?

[Emma Greed]

Yes. Yeah. But you've learned to embrace the numbers.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah, yeah.

[Emma Greed]

Did you ever. Have you ever got it completely wrong?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Oh, God, absolutely. Yeah. Not too many times. You know, it's better to be right more than you're wrong in my business.

[Emma Greed]

Because they're such huge bets. Yeah, they're such huge bets. When did you get comfortable in your life, like, taking. Because what you do, I mean, it's so big and there's so many people on the line and such a huge amount of. Of money and credibility and all the things. So how have you managed to get to the point where you're comfortable just to make those decisions and to have the failures?

[Dame Donna Langley]

I think I've never looked at them at risk as risks. There's lots of things written about our studio, about, you know, whether it was Oppenheimer or, you know, a number of different decisions that we've made as being risky. And I think part of it is I don't see them as risks going in, and it might just be. I see them differently, and I haven't been surprised too often in the wrong direction. And so it's validating. Right. If you follow that gut instinct and you. Again, you bet on brilliance every time. And also, I think the other thing is when we have failed on something on a project, but the integrity was there. We did follow our instincts. We did everything right. But the, you know, the movie gods didn't align, as they sometimes don't. I can feel okay about that. I can. You know, nobody ever likes to lose money for their parent company or anything like that, but I can.

[Emma Greed]

You can reconcile it?

[Dame Donna Langley]

I can reconcile it.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Cause not all great bets come off. Like, sometimes they can still be, you know, a good idea or a great story to have told, but it's not commercially viable.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Not. The timing was wrong or, you know, there was some. There was some factor that you couldn't.

[Emma Greed]

Control, but you seem to have, like, a balance of assertiveness in your leadership style, but with the elegance as well. And that's what I keep coming back to, because I just don't think that you see that so much in your industry. So you must. Do you consider yourself a bit of an outlier?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Very much so, yeah. Yeah.

[Emma Greed]

Longevity, a company is so rare today. Yeah, it really is, isn't it? Nobody seems to say anywhere. It's like, I get resumes constantly, like, two years Here, three years there, two years here, three years there. How do you continue? If that's a choice that you've made, how do you make sure that you continue to grow and you continue to thrive?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah, well, I could get bored very easily. And so the fact I've been at my company as long as I have really is a testament. I am never bored. There's always some really fun thing to do. And I thrive so much on the creative process and working with creative people. So each movie feels different, each filmmaker is different, and it's a different set of challenges and opportunities. But my company's also been bought and sold many times over. And so it has felt like I've worked for a bunch of different companies, even though it's all within the same one. We've been owned by the same company now for a number of years and that stability is really nice and good. And yeah, I mean, I'm sure if I was coming up today, I wouldn't have the same career path. I would bounce around a little bit more and probably go between traditional and tech and do all those things. It would be very different. But I have enjoyed working with a management team as long as I've worked with the majority of my team because we've built up, you know, some core competencies that make it really satisfying to go to work every day.

[Emma Greed]

I bet. Do you think that there, or I should ask you, what are the specific traits that you have as a leader, as an executive that have helped you remain effective and resilient?

[Dame Donna Langley]

I'm not fear based. Right.

[Emma Greed]

Because I just feel like the last few, like it's been extremely challenging circumstances in your business. Right. But you have remained who you are and you've remained very successful, but you've remained like at the core of who you are.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah, I have lots of cliches that I bandy around a lot, you know, and one of them is you can only control what you can control. Right. And so while all of this swirl is happening around us, whether it is the pandemic or, you know, the disruption, the innovation that's happening with AI coming.

[Emma Greed]

In, I mean, it must be crazy for your industry.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah, yeah. And we don't know yet what it's going to bring us, but you know, our job is to be kind of eyes wide open, look around all the corners, don't put your head in the sand, know that it's coming, meet it head on, but look at it as an opportunity. Right. So I think it's just, it's that it's Also, I have another fun saying where I say to my team all the time, the cavalry is not coming. We are the cavalry. So we need to just get on with it.

[Emma Greed]

We just need to get on with it. It's down to us.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Get on with it.

[Emma Greed]

It's like no one's coming to save you.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah, no one's coming. No one's coming to save. Exactly. No, this is it.

[Emma Greed]

This is it. It's us.

[Dame Donna Langley]

It's us.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah, it's us.

[Dame Donna Langley]

So let's get on with it. Let's get on that horse and go for a ride.

[Emma Greed]

It feels like a very British mentality. It does, isn't it?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Very stiff upper lip.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah. Keep calm, carry on.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Keep calm and carry on. But it kind of works because, you know, I think if you let all the noise in, then you get off your sort of your access, you know, And I think when, as you well know, when you're working with creative people in a creative endeavor, it is really important to stay very centered.

[Emma Greed]

Yes.

[Dame Donna Langley]

And not allow distraction into the process. You know, you gotta keep really focused on what it is. What's the vision? What are you trying to accomplish? What should this mean to the audience? What do we wanna convey, you know, and how do we get there? Denial is probably pretty healthy.

[Emma Greed]

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[Dame Donna Langley]

It's such a great question and I do ask it a lot. I don't think I would have been able to do what I have done in the uk. I don't, sadly. No, no.

[Emma Greed]

It's true, isn't it?

[Dame Donna Langley]

I think it is quintessentially American. Yeah, yeah.

[Emma Greed]

The journey, specifically like that journey is just something that can only happen. I know, it's so interesting because I think in a moment where so many people are down on this country, I think that there's so many great things about this place, but one of them is that the American dream is still alive and kicking in so many ways.

[Dame Donna Langley]

I always used to say, and this is not a knock on our country, but I always used to say in the UK you would have a big idea and somebody and the answer would be response would be, what do you want to do that for? Why would you want to do that?

[Emma Greed]

Knock down straight away, you come here.

[Dame Donna Langley]

And you have that same idea. How can I help? What can I do? Let me, you know, let me be a part of that.

[Emma Greed]

But in our wonderful country, you have been recognized as a dame. Yes. You're Dame Donna Langley. I should like have cursed it or something. When you come in, does that honor mean something to you?

[Dame Donna Langley]

You know, it does it? Does. I remember the year I got it, which was right before the pandemic, actually, so I didn't collect it until afterwards, but this year.

[Emma Greed]

Oh, really?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Oh, I know. It was a dream delay.

[Emma Greed]

I saw the photo. That's why I'm wearing polka dogs today, by the way, because I saw the picture of you and King Charles. So you did get to go and get it in person eventually.

[Dame Donna Langley]

I did.

[Emma Greed]

So upset.

[Dame Donna Langley]

It was fun. But I remember my son, he was 9 at the time, and I was looking at the thing, the letter that I'd received, and he said, mom, is there something that you wanted since you were a little girl? And I said, God, no, absolutely not. You sort of thought it was something that went to other people had and sort of older people maybe. So it was an interesting one when I got it, but it was really wonderful. And. And look, I love my country, and I do identify very strongly with, you know, with a lot of cultural aspects of being English. And so, yeah, to be recognized for the contributions that I've made to our industry and other things, and in such a very specific and beautiful way, it meant more to me than I thought it was going to. I have to say, I'm very proud of it.

[Emma Greed]

I can't imagine you should be so proud. And you are such a one of one. And again, I think it's so important for British people to see, like, the idea that you could be born in the Isle of Wight and climb the ranks and be in this position in Hollywood. I mean, it's pretty major. One of the things that I really wanted to touch on with you is that you were such a figurehead during that moment of MeToo. And I think everybody, certainly everybody listens to this podcast, knows what that was about. But I wanted to ask you now, being reflective and in hindsight looking back, did it work? Did it actually change your industry?

[Dame Donna Langley]

So what I would say is I think it did change the industry. I think we made progress. And what I learned very early on in those days was our job was to make as much progress as we could and understand that the door would probably shut behind us at a certain point. In fact, Gloria Stein and came to speak to us, and she said a version of that. You know, movements are not linear. They kind of meander around you. Exactly. It's like, you know, you look at any movement and you make real progress, usually in the face of crisis, and then for whatever reason, the door gets shut behind you.

[Emma Greed]

And oftentimes you can go a little bit backwards before you go pull Forward. Because it's like a pendulum swing, right?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yes, exactly.

[Emma Greed]

We're waiting for the overcorrection. That's this. We want to go like this.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah, yeah. And I do think it was a, you know, it's been an interesting few years, but I know in my own organization we made a ton of progress and I know in the industry we made a ton of progress. One of the things that came out of it, which I really appreciate that I experience and benefit from, is a lot of women came together as a community. That had not happened before.

[Emma Greed]

Very true.

[Dame Donna Langley]

You know, I think we had all been raised up in the industry thinking, you know what, we had to be a little bit circumspect. We were put in competition with each other. There were so few opportunities for us. We were there in service of the guys and that all kind of went away. And I think we broke down a lot of barriers there, which was really good.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah, I mean, I think I could see that at the dinner you hosted for Vital Voices the other day. Not that the two things were linked in any way, but the group of people that you put together in some, I guess in some conversations would be considered competition. This is a bunch of very high powered women in your industry that have come together because of that. And so I think that that was.

[Dame Donna Langley]

A hugely beneficial around common goals and that can't be taken away from us, right?

[Emma Greed]

No, no, no. You have. That's there now.

[Dame Donna Langley]

We can, and we can do all the things we need to do to conform to what the government needs us to do, but you can't, you know, you can't undo what's been done. So what I would say is, you know, the work is not done. It's not over. There'll be another moment when, you know, we have the opportunity to really forge ahead. But in the meantime, just keep at it. And I think this is something that everyone can do. I always say it doesn't really. It doesn't have to be a big thing. It doesn't have to be a big program or a big gesture or something. Small things, things help. Small things matter. It doesn't matter if you're an assistant. There's going to be somebody else around you in your place of work, in your friend group or wherever who kind of needs that helping hand. It can make all the difference.

[Emma Greed]

And that is in any industry, because it doesn't matter if you're in film, if you're in fashion, if you work a more traditional corporate job. I think that that movement helped move the curtain on so many of our industries and we all started to think about doing things differently and we operate differently as a result of that time. Yeah, often I guess that you are the only woman in like a very influential space. And I wonder how you find your voice and your confidence. Is there something that you call on or a ritual that you have or if you just trained your mindset at this point?

[Dame Donna Langley]

I think at this point I've trained my mindset. It's not, it's not intimidating to me anymore.

[Emma Greed]

It sense. Makes never. You never get intimidated?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Well, I mean, I get intimidated by probably the silliest things, but, you know, but being in a. In a room with a lot of men or, you know, being in a minority in a room is. I have learned to be okay with that. I think earlier on in my career, the ways that I would cope is somebody gave me really good advice once, actually, they just said, you don't need to be the loudest person in the room. You don't need to speak until you really have something to. And I think I operate very much that way. I'm a listener. I really. You learn so much by listening.

[Emma Greed]

It's a fantastic skill to have.

[Dame Donna Langley]

It's a really good skill to have and not many people have it.

[Emma Greed]

It's true. It took me a long time to learn to listen. I'm still learning.

[Dame Donna Langley]

You're a great listener. That is. Don't sell yourself short.

[Emma Greed]

No, but it's one of those things that if you are, you know, I'm trained or I'm hardwired to fill in the gaps because it would make me feel uncomfortable to be in silence. And sometimes you just need to take that moment and, and take it all in and just listen. And it's a really underrated skill to be a great listener.

[Dame Donna Langley]

It is. And of course, when you're coming up in your career, you can feel insecure if you don't speak up. You think if you don't, you know, if you're not heard and you're not seen, and I don't think it's the case. I think you can really hold yourself in your power and you can wait for the right moment. I always say also, never go into a room unprepared. You know, the more prepared you are, the more confidence you're going to have and the greater ability you're gonna have to find your moment to speak up and say something that you know can be said in one sentence as opposed to an hour long conversation of people talking over each other.

[Emma Greed]

What other advice would you Offer to anyone that feels isolated in their professional environment, you know, either because they're a woman or they're minority. Do you have specific advice that you offer to your.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah, I mean, I think it's about finding community, you know, and again, just knowing that when you're coming up in your career as a woman, as a woman of color, or, you know, anyone who is a minority, honestly, in any way, it is inevitable that you're going to be in spaces where you are one of one, where you feel other and you are othered. It's going to happen. And so building resilience on the. On the outside, where do you find community and where, how? And then just bringing that strength into that room with you.

[Emma Greed]

You are married and a mother of two.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yes.

[Emma Greed]

And I read somewhere that you didn't take much of a maternity leave, which neither did I actually. And while I love that I offer very good and generous maternity policies here, it's an interesting thing that I think so many successful women at some point felt that had to return. Do you think that you would be where you are now, A, had you had children at a different time in your life, and B, had you taken much longer time off afterward?

[Dame Donna Langley]

I think to answer the second question first, it would not have mattered to my career if I'd taken more time, if I had been boundaried, if I had been strong enough to hold my boundaries and say, nope, I'm not coming back. I'm gonna take another.

[Emma Greed]

And you just weren't strong enough at the time?

[Dame Donna Langley]

I wasn't strong enough to do it. I felt too vulnerable. I felt, yeah. Too weak to do that. And I don't regret things in general, you know, I did it. I got through it. You know, I found other ways, you know, to sort of build back.

[Emma Greed]

First of all, I love that you say out loud that you didn't have. You didn't have the strength to be able to, you know, say, no, I'm gonna take a longer time, which I think is really important. The other part of my question, so it was, was, do you feel like if you'd have come back earlier that it would've been any different? But the next part was when you choose to have children, because I feel like for so many women, you're like, there's just never a right time. I shouldn't do it in my 20s. That's too soon. Then I'm gonna get to, like, my mid-30s, and that's, like, too late. And so, like, you know, I just wonder about your timing. Was it Purposeful. Would you have done anything differently?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Well, my journey to be a mother was a difficult one, and I had an operation that went horribly wrong, and it really delayed our ability to have kids. And so I had my third. My first son when I was 41, almost, and my second when I was 43.

[Emma Greed]

Oh, my goodness.

[Dame Donna Langley]

So I am. I am a geriatric mother. That is the way they say that in this country. The official term.

[Emma Greed]

It is the official term.

[Dame Donna Langley]

It's the official.

[Emma Greed]

So demeaning. So they need to rebrand that. We need a rebrand for sure.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Really? Do you come up with something?

[Emma Greed]

We'll come up with something. Something tomorrow.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Let's do it now.

[Emma Greed]

Make a T shirt. And, you know.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yes, let's take that one from the record. And so what I would say is I have loved being a slightly older mother and bringing the perspective I have to the table of, you know, being, you know, a mother that I've experienced a lot also. It was at a point in my career, I certainly wasn't done, not by a long shot, but I felt like I could prioritize my kids and my family and my marriage and my career and everything else would kind of go by the wayside. You know, my social life changed a lot. I don't do that thing of going away with my husband on our own very often. You know, I wish I did.

[Emma Greed]

Something's gotta give.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Something's gotta give.

[Emma Greed]

Right? You can't do it all at all.

[Dame Donna Langley]

At the same time, as you correctly say. So real pros and cons, having said all that. So it's really worked for me to have my kids at the age that I've had them. And it really keeps you young. It keeps you on your. And toes. I've got two boys, and, you know, they are relentless and, you know, and it helps that my husband's five years younger than me.

[Emma Greed]

There's that.

[Dame Donna Langley]

There's that. That was. That was smart.

[Emma Greed]

Strategic.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Very strategic. Very strategic. And he's very sporty and does all the things with them. But I do recommend to a lot of young women I work with to, you know, if they're on that career path, take advantage of, you know, some of the health benefits that exist now. Go freeze your eggs. Go do all that. Really get on your, you know, plan your. If you want to have a family, plan your family in the way that you plan your career or the way that you plan anything else. Right. And I didn't do that. Same more.

[Emma Greed]

Donna. Don't you think that we just need to be like Having the conversations very intentional and not like, putting it under the table.

[Dame Donna Langley]

No, no. Yeah. We do need to be having that conversation because it does get exponentially harder the older you get. That's a very real thing.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah.

[Dame Donna Langley]

And there's no shame in it. And there's no taboo to it. You know, it's our body. We can do what we want. And, you know, if that's something that you really feel like you're, you know, you're going to want to do. It's just a backup system.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah, it's just a backup system. But I love that you say plan it like you're planning your career moves, because it is one of those things that requires thought and timing and planning. And there's no shame to you being planful around it. You just have to figure it out. And again, if it is something that you really, really want, then it needs to be part of a plan.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yes.

[Emma Greed]

It can't be an afterthought.

[Dame Donna Langley]

100%. I didn't have a plan. My husband and I were having so much fun.

[Emma Greed]

I mean, I had a plan, but even the best plans didn't work out. So there's that, too.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah, exactly.

[Emma Greed]

You might have a plan, and it suddenly doesn't work. You know, I had my first two children naturally, and it was so easy and so great. And you have this idea that you can choose your timing. And, you know, when I decided I'd like a third child, turns out I couldn't choose my timing. And that, you know, was a major setback to me. That was something that was so. Such an upheaval. And so, you know, it's like. Shakes you to the core, because once you've had two children naturally, you never imagine it's gonna be any different. But I think it is. It's just about being honest with yourself about what you want and when you're gonna be able to do that and being really forthright in your decisions around it.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah, I agree. I think so. And there isn't really enough out there. I don't think we talk about it enough.

[Emma Greed]

Honest enough.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Right, right.

[Emma Greed]

That's what happens. And, you know, it's so interesting because I think that I'm, you know, I talk about everything and, you know, all the sorts of things with my girlfriends. And even I hid for a little while that I was having ivf.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah.

[Emma Greed]

There was something in my, you know, it's like, I can do it all. I do anything. And I was like.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah. Associated with it. I think in a culture. Yeah. Which they shouldn't be.

[Emma Greed]

No, they just shouldn't be. Because once you do take someone, I remember telling and the three women I was with at the time were like, me too, me too, me too. And I was like, what am I doing here?

[Dame Donna Langley]

You find your community.

[Emma Greed]

You find your community and you often find they're right next to you. Yeah, right there.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah.

[Emma Greed]

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[Dame Donna Langley]

Oh my goodness. I mean, if they were just coming into the industry, I would say just jump in two feet first. Go work anywhere. You know, just learn as much as you can as fast as you can Also be prepared that it could take you a couple of years. That transition, like I said earlier, from the transition from, from a desk, an assistant desk to a junior executive desk is a hard one. Once you do it, you're kind of off and running. I would also say be very fluid. Do you wanna work for a tech company that's making content or do you wanna work for a traditional media company? I had a great assistant, Juliet, for a number of years and I hired her because when I said the cliche, I asked her the cliche question of the where do you want to be five years from now? She said the job I want hasn't been created.

[Emma Greed]

Oh, what an answer.

[Dame Donna Langley]

I know.

[Emma Greed]

Juliet.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yes, Juliet for the win.

[Emma Greed]

Yes, Juliet for the win.

[Dame Donna Langley]

She was right, by the way.

[Emma Greed]

Yes, come on in.

[Dame Donna Langley]

She was right. And she.

[Emma Greed]

Because she's gonna work in the future of your industry. She doesn't.

[Dame Donna Langley]

But my follow up question was, why do you want to come and work at a traditional media company? Then why don't you go and work for Netflix or Amazon or Apple, wherever? And she said, because, Because I want to learn the systems and processes that underpin this industry. Because I don't think they're going to be gone in five minutes.

[Emma Greed]

What a winner. Where's Juliet now?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah, she's out there. She's out and about. You should meet her, she's great.

[Emma Greed]

Go, Juliet.

[Dame Donna Langley]

And I think she was right about that too. So I think again, there's all sorts of early career biases. I want to do this, I want to do that. Just again, learn as much as you can. I think there's a lot of young people actually leaving college and going into the agencies and doing the trainee program.

[Emma Greed]

Yes.

[Dame Donna Langley]

That used to be a thing 20 years ago, 25 years ago. And I think it kind of tapered off. And now as I'm seeing a lot.

[Emma Greed]

Of that happen, well, I can understand why. And I think the same is happening in fashion and in the creative industries. Like going back into those kind of very early, I guess, like the sort of like the dirty work. Because at the end of the day, in our business, businesses, it's the relationships that matter. It's again, understanding those systems and processes that are the underpinning of the industry. Like you can't shortcut some of this stuff. You gotta go through it, you've gotta do it and that will help you. If you're making, I don't know, AI generated content or whatever you're doing, of course still need the relationship, you still gotta be able to pick up the phone and get, you know, shit done.

[Dame Donna Langley]

That's right. No, I think that's a really good point.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah, it really is. I heard that you're a big rap music fan. Are you? Do you like ABBA and rap? Is that where we're going?

[Dame Donna Langley]

I'm very eclectic. Very eclectic in my taste.

[Emma Greed]

Do you have, like, a hype song that you ever like as you're in the mirror? Is there something.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Well, I mean, having made Straight out of Compton. I love Straight out of Compton. I love the Chronic. I love going back to the 90s.

[Emma Greed]

Me too. You can't beat 90s rap.

[Dame Donna Langley]

You can't beat it.

[Emma Greed]

You can't beat 70s rap. I will listen to, like, a full Warren G album before anything that's been released in the last five years.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Just.

[Emma Greed]

So everybody clear where my preference is.

[Dame Donna Langley]

I did just go and see Kendrick and Sza, though. That was amazing.

[Emma Greed]

I mean, that was so good.

[Dame Donna Langley]

I go.

[Emma Greed]

So I did go. And I also think that the reason I love Kendrick is because he feels like one of the old rappers.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Oh, yeah.

[Emma Greed]

Like, to me, it's like he has that, like, 90s sound. Yeah. And it just feels so lovely and familiar. And I understand what he's saying. Cause I'm an old cow now. I don't get any of the new. If you're called Lil Anything, then I'm not feeling it. I'm sorry. I can't. Like, that's for somebody else. I'm just like, let my kids deal with it. How do you unwind and recharge? What are the things that you do to keep yourself energized and well, and.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Have some sense of balance in the exercise realm category? I do Pilates.

[Emma Greed]

I could have told you that. You're a Pilates person.

[Dame Donna Langley]

I do weights and I love to hike.

[Emma Greed]

Oh, that's the privilege of living in la.

[Dame Donna Langley]

I know the hiking.

[Emma Greed]

Like, none of my English friends are like, where are you hiking? And I'm like, I hike, like, in. You know, I'll be in Beverly Hills and I can see a mountain. I'm like, I have no idea where I am, but it's the best thing ever.

[Dame Donna Langley]

It's so great. It's so good for the soul. Just clears your head. Yes, it is. Yeah. We're fortunate enough to have a place in Ojai. Oh, it's so beautiful. We have the best hike right outside of our door. So I do that. And oddly, I find reading scripts really therapeutic.

[Emma Greed]

Really?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah.

[Emma Greed]

All these years.

[Dame Donna Langley]

All these years. And I think it's because. Because in my day to day job, there's so many things pulling me away from that creative process that I love it. I sit down and I've got the script there and I open it. I might take a nap for 10 minutes. Just a. 10 minute, just a quick one. And then I'm back to it. Getting connected into that process makes me. It really, I find it really calming.

[Emma Greed]

Well, that's probably another reason why you're so successful, because you've been able to somehow couple the business aspect and keep this creative part of your job, which you're clearly very, very good at. But the two things go hand in hand. And I think that that's kind of quite unusual in a way that you could head a studio and still be at that point where you're like, I'm reading scripts. Yeah.

[Dame Donna Langley]

I think if I lost that, it would be time to leave the field.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah. And it's nowhere near time for you to be leaving the field.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Ready?

[Emma Greed]

So what is next for Donna Langley?

[Dame Donna Langley]

I think I'm really focused on where our industry is going. We've been waiting for this seismic change to happen for, I think, you know, almost a decade. You know, with. With streaming now being so ubiquitous. It is here and it's not going anywhere. People are consuming their content, their user generated content in such a different way. And then AI is going to come in and. And change the game completely. And I don't mean movies and TV shows are gonna be made and written by AI. There's gonna be checks and balances. And I'm a big believer in the human element is so important. It's our compassion and empathy that enables us to tell stories in the way that we do. And storytelling is as humanity, it's one constant. Right. I'm just excited to kind of see where it goes and look for any opportunity to continue doing the things that I really love doing and hold onto those, but don't hold on too tightly to the things that are maybe gonna change and go away forever.

[Emma Greed]

That feels very, very sensible. That feels like a career that's set up for you to be doing this for the next.

[Dame Donna Langley]

I wish I could say I'm gonna go do this or I'm gonna go do that. I really, I'm not uncertain. It just hasn't revealed itself yet. There something there that's gonna be pretty exciting.

[Emma Greed]

But maybe that's part of the secret that you are so open to what's coming next and you're not scared of it. Rather you're embracing it and you're just gonna Be ready for when it does come.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah. Ready for whatever it is. Yeah.

[Emma Greed]

That's incredible.

[Dame Donna Langley]

I love.

[Emma Greed]

I love that so much because it's a crazy time in all of our businesses. So if we can approach it with that idea of being open and being part of it, that's surely the way to go. That's the way to set yourself up for success.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah, I think so, too. All right, I only have some rapid fire questions.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Oh, good for you, Jo. These are the ones I'm really bad.

[Emma Greed]

At on the spot.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Okay.

[Emma Greed]

Okay. What is the first thing you do when you wake up?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Make a cup of tea.

[Emma Greed]

I love that. What kind of tea do you like?

[Dame Donna Langley]

English breakfast.

[Emma Greed]

Of course you do, darling.

[Dame Donna Langley]

With milk and sugar. You do. Milk and sugar.

[Emma Greed]

The best. What's the last thing you do before you go to bed at night?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Kiss my. I kiss my boys. They are now old enough that they stay up later than me.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah, I'm approaching that right now. Every now and again I'm like, if you're staying, like, I'm going.

[Dame Donna Langley]

My younger one is now wanting to go and see movies, the midnight showing, and expect me to pick him up afterwards. Oh, I'm in that zone. Yeah.

[Emma Greed]

Get an Uber. Get an Uber.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Exactly.

[Emma Greed]

You'll be fine. Figure it out.

[Dame Donna Langley]

So. But yes, I love, love. You know, they still snuggle, which is really cute. Yeah, yeah.

[Emma Greed]

Take the snuggles while you can. What are you currently aspiring for in your business life?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Continued success. Just continuing to work with the best of the best.

[Emma Greed]

And what are you currently aspiring for in your personal life?

[Dame Donna Langley]

I think it's about staying grounded. There's so much going on in our world every day. Right. And, you know, having kids, you think about them more than you think about yourself. Right. It's just. I want, you know, I'm focused on what do they need to be thinking about as a career path? You know, what's the world going to look like for them? So, you know, again, it goes back to what I was saying earlier. Try and stay. Stay educated, stay up to speed on everything that's happening, but drown out the distractions and the noise and the hysteria as much as you can. Yeah, I just want to stay very, very grounded with my family.

[Emma Greed]

That's a perfect aspiration. What is a book that changed your life.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Oh, my gosh. I think it was Love in the Time of Cholera.

[Emma Greed]

Oh.

[Dame Donna Langley]

I read it at a time where I was so open. That's a good one to read. Everything is about unrequited love. And it's. It's the sexiest environment. And I loved it so much. I've read it so many times. And you revisit. I do.

[Emma Greed]

With my favorite books.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah. And I think I also read it at a time where a lot of people were reading it at the same time. And so I met so many people and made friends by virtue of reading that book.

[Emma Greed]

So that's so lovely. What's something that you valued when you were starting out your career that you no longer value?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Oh, my goodness. That is. Is a trick question, isn't it? Yes. Everyone says that. You know, I think in my early days I was much more ego driven, you know, about having to get the credit for something or having to get the accolade for something. And over time that's dissipated. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. Sometimes you'll get the pat on the shoulder. You have to learn to be okay with not getting the pat on the shoulder. Shoulder. It's nice when you get it, but you don't always get it.

[Emma Greed]

That's some good advice right there. What's something that you value now that you didn't back then?

[Dame Donna Langley]

I've come to really treasure my friendships and my close relationships, either professional or personal, in a way that when you're younger, they can. People come and go, people move in and out of lives. You know, you kind of hear one minute and over there the next. And I really, I think it makes maybe solidified after having kids and even through the pandemic. I just really treasure the people in my life who I know I can count on, who are there for me.

[Emma Greed]

Does that include that lovely woman that moved to the US with you?

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yes.

[Emma Greed]

Amazing.

[Dame Donna Langley]

My bestie.

[Emma Greed]

Just how amazing that she's still your bestie.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Emma Greed]

So, so cool. I'm so happy for you. And I just, yeah, I'm still so, like, just impressed by you and all of your success. And I'm so happy that I got to sit with you today and learn even more. Thank you so much.

[Dame Donna Langley]

Thank you so much. It's been so much fun.

[Emma Greed]

If you're loving this podcast, be sure to click follow on your favorite listening platform. While you're there, give us a review and a five star rating and share an episode you loved with a friend who'd be so grateful. Aspire with Emma Greed is presented by Audacy. I'm your host, Emma Greed. Our executive producers are Corrine Gilliatt Fisher, Derrick Brown and me. Our executive producers from Audacy are Maddy Sprung Keyser, Leah Reese Dennis, Asha Salouja and Jenna Weiss Berman. Our producer is Kristin Torres. Sound design and engineering by Bill Schultz. Angela Peluso is our booker. Original music by Charles Black Video Product production by Evan Cox, Kirk Courtney, Andrew Steele, Carlos Delgado and Arnie Agassi Social media by Olivia Homan Special thanks go to Brittany Smith, Sydney Ford, My teams at Jonesworks and wne Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Hilary Schuff, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchinson, Rose, Tim Meecol, Sean Cherry and Lauren Vieira. If you questions have for me you can DM me at Aspire with Emma Greed. Greed is spelled G r e D e. That's Aspire A S P I r E with Emma Greed or you can submit a question to me on my website. Emagreed me Introducing the new Eggo Protein Waffles. The same great Eggo taste people know and love. Now with 20% of your daily protein in every single serving, protein never tasted this good. These waffles deliver an excellent source of complete protein with 10 grams per serving and are made with wholesome ingredients fresh from the griddle. Perfect as part of a complete breakfast. Eggo Protein Waffles pair easily with fresh fruit, almond butter or whatever is already in the kitchen. They offer a delicious way to start the day with irresistible taste families are looking for. When something tastes this good and delivers this much protein. No one can say no. Head to your local grocery store to fuel your morning with Eggo Protein waffles and pancakes. Available at retailers nationwide.