She's just the ticket Dianne Thompson has secured both a sympathetic image and a second franchise for Camelot. Anne Bruce finds out how Reflecting on a career which has just brought her the accolade of Business Woman of the Year, Dianne Thompson says that since she has become "high profile" by virtue of her role as chief executive of Camelot, she's started to receive hate mail. The letters are from people irate over how the National Lottery money Camelot raises is allocated to good causes. Those complaints are misdirected and, she suspects, based on incomplete knowledge. "People hate us because they believe we make the decisions, but that is not Camelot's job," she says. The grants are, in fact, made by five good cause organisations appointed by the department of culture. "And for every Royal Opera House, there are donations to 5,000 small, local community projects that these critics are not aware of. We must try to get that message across, and retailers will play a critical part in that." Getting the message across has become second nature to Thompson in a marketing career that has seen her in manifestations as varied as a lecturer at Manchester Polytechnic's business studies department and marketing director of Woolworths. She says: "I fell into marketing because my careers advisory officer said I'd be good in it, although I hadn't got a clue what it was. I'm not sure whether she was right ­ whether I was right for marketing, or marketing has made me what I am. In the end I started my career with the CWS in Manchester as a marketing trainee." Marketing turned out to be an admirable fit. A glance at a CV which spans nearly 30 years is testament to the opportunities it brought. Thompson has never been one to follow the herd. As far back as her university studies, her resumé bears the stamp of her versatility. Despite the fact her degree in English and French was awarded by London University, she actually studied externally at Manchester Poly. She says: "I came down here to do my exams, but I did all my lectures up in Manchester. It was an incredibly hard thing to do and I think that's why they have now scrapped external courses. I actually didn't want to come to London, but I liked the degree. The compromise seemed to be to do it in the north." And she remained in Manchester after completing the course, putting in three years at CWS wholesale before a five-year stint at ICI's Paints Division. Then she returned to her old stomping ground of Manchester Poly, this time as a lecturer in the business studies department, showing her business flair as she set up an advertising agency which she ran concurrently for five of her seven years lecturing in strategic planning and marketing. She says: "I had a few plates spinning at the time. It was a real win-win because we employed some of our students in the ad agency, there was a sandwich course that we did in the department, so some of the students came and worked for me in the summer, and some of my clients came in and gave guest lectures to the students. So everybody benefited from it, it was good fun." By 1986 she had decided to move on and went to Sterling Roncraft where she spent two years as marketing director, before being headhunted by Sandwick Saws and Tools, her first role as md. Born in Batley, Yorkshire, Thompson is fiercely loyal to her northern roots and avoided London up to the end of that stage of her career. In fact she only moved to the capital full-time nine years ago in the wake of the break-up of her marriage, which she blames on her passion for her work. Typically, she arrived at a time of life when her friends were moving in the other direction, back to their roots. She settled in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, deciding to live north-west of London so she could easily get her young daughter up to Birmingham to see her father, and taking up the post of marketing director for Woolworths. After two years there she went to the Signet Group as marketing director, and turned round the Ratner business, after Gerald Ratner's well publicised comments that proved unhelpful to the company's image. At last in February 1997 she joined Camelot as commercial operation director ­ the first woman executive on its board ­ becoming heir apparent to chief executive Tim Holley. Soon after she arrived the fat cat scandal broke over bonuses awarded to Camelot's five founding directors. "Then there was the Branson libel case. My first year was a baptism of fire, but it stood me in good stead for what has happened since!" She hopes that as chief executive of the company, she epitomises the antithesis of the "fat cat" skeleton in Camelot's closet. She gestures in the direction of her shoes, in case I had not noticed she was 5ft all in, and neatly dressed in a crisp outfit with matching accessories. She says: "My pay package is a third less than that of my predecessors two years ago. We've done a lot to try to eradicate that kind of fat cat image. I think that having someone like me who doesn't actually, I hope, look like a fat cat, helps along the way." The Veuve Clicquot sponsored Business Woman of the Year award also helps along the way. She is excited at "the great personal accolade" but generously offloads it to the greater good of Camelot. She says: "It is good for the company because we are trying to move on from being feisty fighters to being serious business people ­ which is what we always have been been, but we haven't always had the recognition." In addition to the award, there are plenty of other pointers to the regard in which Thompson is held by her peers. She is a member of the council of the Advertising Standards Authority, the Marketing Society, the Marketing Group of Great Britain, and the Women in Advertising Club of London. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, where she will take over as president in June 2001. And she is animated with mischief when she says that Sir Richard Branson, who unsuccessfully challenged Camelot's bid for the lottery franchise, has added his vote of confidence in her in a recent press article. She keeps a magazine in her bag in which he is reported as saying he felt he could work with her. "Sir Richard did say that if we lost he would offer me a job. I never found out what that job was!" The slings and arrows of Camelot's battle with the People's Lottery, which was resolved at the start of the year, are entering Camelot folklore as Thompson focuses on plans for its next seven years running the lottery. The contest for the franchise has brought the 850 staff she heads together. She says: "When I joined in 1997 I used to get frustrated. People who had been at Camelot from the start were always looking back. On numerous occasions I have addressed people and said, you've got to stop looking back, you must start looking forward'. Now we have experienced winning a bid, it has united us, but I have to make sure we keep looking forward." And Thompson is already thinking seven years ahead, when Camelot will face the next challenge to its franchise. She says: "I know a lot of people have said now we've got it for a second time no one will take us on. But Sir Richard may have another go. I know he said he won't, but he said he wouldn't last time. I think there will be a lot of competitors, not reflecting the Camelot model, but people who are interested in bits of the lottery." But the world will be a different place by 2008. Camelot's strategy for the next licence is to embrace the new opportunities offered by the electronic world. Thompson said: "I think our competition next time is going to come from the new media companies, because we've said that by the end of our licence, 25% of our sales will come from the new media. The good news for our retailers is, that is incremental growth from where we are, so we are going to build the business on top of what we are already doing." But when that time comes Thompson may well be long gone. She says: "If I am still here in seven years it will be on my way out, rather than looking to go into the next licence. I think it is important to have a balance between continuity and fresh ideas. I have been here for four and a bit years, and if I stay for another seven that would be a very long time. We probably need fresh blood before then." And things are soon to be on the turn for Thompson at home as well. She still lives in Beaconsfield with her now 16-year-old daughter. She has kept a promise made when they came to London ­ that they would not move again until her daughter had finished her A-levels. She says: "The move was at the same time as my divorce, so it was traumatic. We've lived in the same house now for nine years, and she's in the first year of sixth form, so she only has another 15 or 16 months left and I can do as I like!" She says: "I hope she enjoys university. After that she wants to go into advertising, but if it then takes another three years for her decide what to do, that is great. The options were so limited when I went, but now there are all sorts of exciting things to do." {{PROFILE }}