Terry Prone: Bored of the same old tired talk around female appointments

'He seemed astonished that I was not bowled over with enthusiasm at the opportunity to telephone all of my rich friends and dun them for money to hand to him'

Michael Noonan and Gemma Hussey in 1986.  She said since she retired from public life, she has been offered not one single directorship other than those which — you’re way ahead of me — require her to call her rich friends to beg money from them.  Picture: Eamonn Farrell

When the client/friend rang and asked me if I’d consider being a director of a prestigious organisation, and if it was all right for him to give his pal, the CEO, my phone number, I was cool about it, not wanting to be embarrassingly eager. 

You know yourself. I put his pal’s number in my phone and, within hours, up he popped. More than touched, he was, to know that I would positively consider a directorship, me being such a phenomenally successful businesswoman over such a long period of time.