She added: “This role has hundreds of years of tradition, it goes back to 1189, and tradition is brilliant. But we also need to gently flex.
“There have been two previous female lord mayors, out of 696, and I will be the 697th.
“But I will be the first to take the name ‘lady mayor’ and to be honest it never occurred to me to be anything else. I’m not a lord, I’m a lady, that’s just who I am.”
As lady mayor she is the ambassador for Financial and Professional Services in the Square Mile, so Mansion House, which she has just moved into, is her embassy.
“I think the words Square Mile… to me square is slightly old fashioned, and it’s not and I’m not.
“The City is innovative. So if I had one aim I’d like, over the next year, to un-square the Square Mile.”
