Martha Lane Fox on Perseverance and Beethoven

If anyone can claim the title of Renaissance Woman, it is Martha Lane Fox. Though she gained prominence during the dot-com boom of the 1990s, her career has since led her serve as the Chancellor of Open University in the United Kingdom; to sit on the boards of companies likeChanel, WeTransfer, and Twitter; and, in 2013, she became the youngest female member to serve in the House of Lords.

In this episode, Lane Fox reflects on her journey of recovery after a car accident in Morocco and explains how the “Prisoners’ Chorus” from Beethoven’s “Fidelio” informs her passion for prison reform.

This Deutsche Grammophon recording of Beethoven’s “Prisoners’ Chorus” from Fidelio is performed by the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna State Opera Chorus under the baton of Leonard Bernstein.