BBC sounds music Radio podcasts hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast.
Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island.
And for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast.
I hope you enjoy listening.
My castaway this week is the businesswoman Shereen Khoury Haq.
She's CEO of the cooperative group, the first female CEO and the first from an ethnic minority in its 180 year history.
The group faced numerous challenges when she took on the top job in 2022.
With disrupted supply chains, high inflation and a 920 million pound debt.
She's reduced that debt by 90% and is now looking to grow the business substantially.
But that progress has demanded difficult decisions, cost cutting and redundancies.
Change has been part of her life since early childhood.
She was born to a turkish mother and a palestinian father who was a geophysicist in the oil industry.
His work took the family around the world and by the time she was twelve she lived on every continent except Antarctica.
But in 1986, the price of oil crashed.
Her father lost his job and the familys fortunes became uncertain.
She was 14 and took on several jobs to put herself through university and achieve the stability she craved.
She says if everything around you is moving and changing, one has to be centered in oneself.
Which is why I chose from an early age to invest in myself, saved my money and set my goals.
I decided I was going to be my own anchor.
Shereen Koorihaq, welcome to Desert island Discs.