She's the Gucci-loving blonde with a tattoo (and a temper) who saved Thomas Cook. So did stuffy 控訴s on the board find her... TOO SEXY for the City

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Harriet Green, pictured, most 一般的に 述べるd her 管理／経営 style as 'part lion and part panda'?

Harriet Green, the recently 出発／死d 長，指導者 (n)役員／(a)執行力のある of Thomas Cook, has a typically colourful way of 述べるing her own 管理／経営 style. ‘Part lion, part panda,’ is the phrase she most frequently uses, meaning that she can be ‘gentle’ but if needed she can also ‘roar’.

It was the ‘lion’ in her that invariably made headlines, though, during her two-and-a-half years at the 舵輪／支配 of the world’s oldest travel 操作者 (most famous スローガン: ‘Don’t just 調書をとる／予約する it, Thomas Cook it.’)

The City diary pages were awash with stories of this driven woman who famously needs even いっそう少なく sleep than Margaret Thatcher did; just four hours a night to be 正確な.?

They in cluded tales of 従業員s 存在 given dressings-負かす／撃墜する in the presence of Ms Green’s beautician, as the boss received a manicure, and the ‘弾道学の’ けん責（する），戒告s she 手渡すd out to her own brother, whom she 雇うd as a driver.

‘These 匿名の／不明の 引用するs do not 反映する the reality of my leadership of Thomas Cook,’ she 主張するd, pointing out that, unlike many bosses, staff were 許すd, and indeed encouraged, to 接触する her 直接／まっすぐに by email with problems ― her いわゆる ‘Ask Harriet’ 政策 ― and could 推定する／予想する a reply within 24 hours.

What is 否定できない is Ms Green’s 記録，記録的な／記録する in transforming the fortunes of a company that, 事前の to her arrival, went through a ‘近づく-death experience’, to 引用する the 財政上の Times.

Yes, there was 血 on the carpet along the road to 回復 with 2,500 職業s axed and 400 High Street 支店s の近くにd, but the 会社／堅い’s 株式市場 value 急に上がるd from £148 million, when she joined in July 2012, to £2.7 billion earlier this year.

Ms Green, 52, was rewarded with a flood of accolades ― she won the coveted Veuve Clicquot businesswoman of the year award in May ― and became a member of the 総理大臣’s inner circle of 最高の，を越す 商売／仕事 助言者s.

But perhaps the greatest compliment she ― or anyone in her position ― could ever receive was that £360 million was wiped off the 株 price に引き続いて her sudden 出口 from Thomas Cook earlier this week.

Why did she go? That is a question that is now the 支配する of rumour, gossip and 憶測 in the Square Mile.

Might the answer, or at least the catalyst for her leaving the travel group, 嘘（をつく） in a jaw-dropping interview she gave to The Times Magazine only a few weeks ago?

From the 前線, Harriet Green, pictured left with husband Graham Clarkson, looks like a 従来の 長，指導者 (n)役員／(a)執行力のある, but from behind, 権利, she has a large Celtic tattoo in 栄誉（を受ける） of her Welsh mother?

行為／行うd in the gym of Brown’s, a five-星／主役にする Mayfair hotel, where Ms Green, who lives in Oxford, stays during the week, it was …を伴ってd by a photograph of her wearing a low-削減（する）, little 黒人／ボイコット number, high-heels, diamond necklace and red sweatbands on each wrist under the headline: ‘Harriet Green: how to be a superboss.’

It would be d ifficult to 想像する one of the nine other women running a FTSE 250 company striking such a 提起する／ポーズをとる, or speaking so candidly about her husband (she chose him in seven seconds), her hairdo (a daily blow-乾燥した，日照りの before 7am), and her 演習 政権 (with a former-海洋 personal trainer at 5.30am).

In the past, she has also spoken about her 生物学の clock (the ‘must have children’ alarm never rang), other women taking maternity leave (they take too much time off) and her taste for Far Eastern culture (her office desk is ― or was ― adorned with a miniature Zen Buddhist garden).

明らかに, no one at Thomas Cook knew about Ms Green’s most 最近の foray into the マスコミ スポットライト until it appeared last month and it was 迎える／歓迎するd with ‘sniggers’ by a number of (male) directors at a その後の board 会合, we were told by someone who was 現在の. Another City 人物／姿／数字 put it more bluntly: ‘It really p***ed off the blokes in the boardroom.’

Harriet Green had a 議論の的になる interview recently, 肩書を与えるd 'how to be a superboss' where she 提起する／ポーズをとるd in a little 黒人／ボイコット dress, high heels, red sweat 禁止（する）d and a kettle 負わせる in the middle of a Mayfair gym, pictured?

One cannot help wondering, however, if their 態度 ― the culmination, it seems, of growing 失望／欲求不満 with Ms Green’s ebullient personal style ― would have been the same had she been a man.

Either way, news of her 辞職, in a written 声明 to the 在庫／株 交流 on Wednesday, took the City by surprise. ‘I have always said that I would move on to another company with fresh challenges once my work was 完全にする. That time is now,’ Ms Green 明らかにする／漏らすd. Yet there was little 証拠 of the meticulous succession 計画（する）, drawn up a year ago によれば the company, 恐らく to 準備する for this moment.

Ms Green was still 名簿（に載せる）／表（にあげる）d as the boss on the 会社／堅い’s website hours after she had （疑いを）晴らすd her desk and 長，指導者 operating officer Peter Fankhauser, a Thomas Cook 退役軍人, had been 明かすd as her 交替／補充.

Only a week ago, in fact, Ms Green was 示唆するing she needed more time to see through her 変形 of the company. She told the audience at a 貿易（する） 出版（物） 会議／協議会: ‘You can’t do a 変形 on this sort of 規模 in a year or two years. I usually say it’s about six years.’

Which perhaps explains why the 公式の／役人 explanation for her 出発 has been met with scepticism.

The company’s 年次の 報告（する）／憶測 名簿（に載せる）／表（にあげる）s the fruition date for Ms Green’s multi-mil lion-続けざまに猛撃する, 業績／成果-関係のある 株 計画（する） as September 2015.

権利 up to the end, moreover, Thomas Cook’s own PR was busy arranging 圧力（をかける） interviews with Ms Green 始める，決める to take place in January.

All this 明白に calls into question whether she really did choose to go, or whether she was 押し進めるd after more 保守的な 上級の 人物／姿／数字s in Thomas Cook, ますます irritated by her flamboyant public profile, decided to 行為／法令／行動する. That this irritation played at least some part in her demise is now 伸び（る）ing 通貨 in the City.

For the moment, the City will certainly be a much いっそう少なく 利益／興味ing and colourful place without the glamorous, diamond-loving, Gucci-wearing, outspoken Harriet Green.

One day they may make a film or TV show about her. There is certainly a wealth of 構成要素 ― 含むing an intriguing personal 支援する story.

Ms Green is e xpected to receive £8 million 価値（がある） of 株 and £340,000 as part of her leaving 一括

She was born in Cheltenham, the oldest of three children, and went to Westwood’s Grammar School.

The defining event of her childhood was the death of her engineer father when she was 14. From him she had learnt the value of that old 説 carpe diem ― ‘掴む the day.’

In particular, he taught her how to を取り引きする sleepless nights. ‘It’s only really a 悪口を言う／悪態 if you have toothache or you are feeling 負かす／撃墜する about things,’ he would tell her, which perhaps explains his daughter’s almost nocturnal 存在 today, waking up at 3.30am answering emails and working out at an ungodly hour.

There is one surprising fact that 現れるs from the 非常に／多数の articles that have been written about her. At King’s College London, where she 熟考する／考慮するd 中世 history, she was a ‘反抗的な student in bovver boots and safety pins’ (her words). There is a 永久の 思い出の品 of Ms Green’s wild, punk days in her 早期に 20s between her shoulder blades ― a Celtic design tattoo (‘a 尊敬の印’ to her Welsh mother), which is 明白な when she wears a cocktail dress and 必然的に raises a few eyebrows when she …に出席するs swanky 商売／仕事 機能（する）／行事s.

Her 商売／仕事 career began by 事故 on leaving university, when she saw an 広告 in a magazine 控訴，上告ing for women ‘with 正直さ and 運動 who want to learn about 商売／仕事’.

It led to a 卒業生（する） training 職業 with a 配当 company. Harriet Green never looked 支援する. Her 20s and 30s were spent travelling the world, running 商売／仕事s in northern Europe, South Africa, Asia and 中国.

She met her husband, Graham Clarkson, who runs his own 工学 companies and was separated from the mother of his children, in 2001 when he visited friends she was working with in New York. ‘I knew after seven seconds I 手配中の，お尋ね者 to marry him,’ she says. ‘It took him nine months but that’s men for you.’

They were married two years later, when Ms Green was 42. They began married life, with her husband’s teenage children from a previous 関係, in the leafy academic Oxford 郊外 of Summertown. Ms Green 言及するs to them as ‘our children’, but says she has no 悔いるs about 存在 a stepmother.

‘Women try to do too much,’ she said in a 最近の interview. ‘I think you have to make some choices. The choice I made was to run 商売／仕事s around the world. Some people say: “Didn’t your 生物学の clock （犯罪の）一味?” If it did, I didn’t hear it.’

The step up to CEO （機の）カム in 2006, when she joined electronics 配当 商売／仕事 首相 Farnell with a 委任統治（領） to 精密検査する it.

The move from there to Thomas Cook was now ‘only an email away ― albeit an unsolicited one’, the magazine 管理／経営 Today 明らかにする／漏らすd in a profile of Ms Green 支援する in January.

She 冷淡な-called Thomas Cook chairman Frank Meysman, having read of the 会社／堅い’s 財政上の difficulties in the 圧力（をかける）. She was 招待するd for a 雑談（する） and was made 長，指導者 (n)役員／(a)執行力のある in July 2012.

The organisation’s familiar red-and-white logo and the スローガン: ‘Don’t just 調書をとる／予約する it, Thomas Cook it’, soon went, and was 取って代わるd with a gold-coloured ‘sunny heart’ and a new スローガン: ‘Let’s Go!’

When she took over, her 管理／経営 team was made up almost 排他的に of men. ‘Goldenballs,’ she called many of them; her word for a 確かな type of boastful male (n)役員／(a)執行力のある for whom she had little 尊敬（する）・点. Many were 解雇（する）d and 取って代わるd by women. Ms Green, who stands at just 5ft 3in, was always immaculately turned out. But there was also a racy element to her designer wardrobe. She often wore a ヒョウ-print coat to work and, at the Veuve Clicquot businesswoman of the year 歓迎会, was photographed 陳列する，発揮するing a hint of 在庫／株ing 最高の，を越す when her evening dress rose up after she sat 負かす／撃墜する to have her picture taken.

But behind that glossy image was a 脅すing 軍隊 of nature.

The most 明らかにする／漏らすing insight into her 政権 at Thomas Cook was within that interview at Brown’s. Her workout in the hotel gym began at 5.30am with her ex-Army trainer ― a 退役軍人 of the war in Afghanistan. At 6.30am, she went to her room and had a quick soak in the bath before 交流ing ‘gym gear for Gucci’.

Every morning, Ms Green’s hairdresser arrived の直前に 7am and had ‘正確に／まさに ten minutes to blow-乾燥した，日照りの my hair, and I’m in the car by seven’. At 7.15, Ms Green was behind her desk in the office.

Her breakfasts were green tea and lots of water. Later in the morning, we learn, she was 部分的な／不平等な to a salmon salad. ‘I do 一般に think people eat and sleep too much,’ she said.

The City 表明するd surprise when Harriet Green 発表するd her 辞職 from Thomas Cook last week

Both her ‘lion’ and ‘panda’ manifested itself during a 会合 at the office which The Times 新聞記者／雑誌記者 sat in on.

She told one (n)役員／(a)執行力のある that a marketing （選挙などの）運動をする he produced was ‘cheap, cheerful and ugh’, 追加するing: ‘Are we deliberately attracting the 無学の?’

There was a silence while her stinging putdown was digested. The scolded (n)役員／(a)執行力のある then said (somewhat implausibly) that it was good to get such feedback.

The next moment Ms Green was the panda, telling him: ‘You’re the king.’

What did the chairman of Thomas Cook think of The Times interview? ‘I would have not done it,’ Mr Meysman is 引用するd as 説 this week. Should she have done it? ‘Everybody has their own style,’ Mr Meysman said. ‘I can only reply that it is not my style.’

But he categorically 否定するd that The Times profile played any part in Ms Green leaving the company, or that there was any ‘personality 衝突／不一致’ between them or any sexism 伴う／関わるd in her 出発.

Ms Green’s mother, Elizabeth, has remarried, but still lives in Cheltenham. ‘I have heard from Harriet,’ she said, when she answered the door of her bungalow this week.

‘She was やめる happy when I spoke to her [on Wednesday night] and although we talk on a たびたび（訪れる） basis, we don’t often talk about work. She 辞職するd because she said she’d done what she 始める，決める out to do. She is feeling very 肯定的な, 絶対.’

Yesterday, a Thomas Cook 広報担当者 told the Mail it was decided a year ago that Peter Fankhauser would 後継する Harriet Green, with the タイミング left open.

That ‘現在進行中の discussion （機の）カム to a 長，率いる’ earlier this week, with a ‘全員一致の board 決定／判定勝ち（する） that 含むd Harriet’. He 否定するd any personality 衝突／不一致 with Frank Meysman or that her Times interview played a part in her 出発.

Apart from anything else, 行方不明になる Green is in line to pocket more than £8 million in 株 built up during her two years at Thomas Cook, 加える six months’ 支払う／賃金 価値（がある） £340,000.

And it surely won’t be long before this part-lion, part-panda will be padding across another boardroom 床に打ち倒す.

• 付加 報告（する）／憶測ing: Tim Stewart.

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