In the autumn of 2012, villagers in the sleepy Berkshire town of Cold Ash were faced with a peculiar sight: night after night, a woman was dragging tyres around the streets.

That woman was Julie Ashmore and she relishes a challenge. On those nights in 2012, she was training for a trip to the South Pole to mark the centenary of Captain Scott's doomed Antarctic expedition. Now, in a similarly challenging role, Ashmore is the chair of HSBC's gender diversity committee and leads its SME lending arm.