They advise against calling her Clegg, her husband Nick’s surname.

My name is Miriam González Durántez and my husband is not me. And it’s not the first time I’ve complained about the “lady of…”.

Did his last name cost Nick Clegg votes?

In the UK, the ultra-conservative tabloids attacked me for this during the five years that Nick was Deputy Prime Minister of the British Government…

To refuse to play “lady of”?

Because I told you all that I wasn’t going to give up my own job as a lawyer to be vice first lady…

Was that going off script?

The tabloids saw me as a threat to the system, but I won the public’s affection. And from then on I tried to keep a discreet line with respect to my husband’s agenda, because I already had mine.

How did they meet?

We met in Brussels, where I studied and was already practicing as an international lawyer. And we were a community couple: I worked with the commissioners, and I worked in the European Parliament.

A union in the Union.

We got married, had two children… And Nick wanted to stand in the British election, and I wanted to work in the City.

Did you campaign against Brexit?

I only criticized Prime Minister May for her attitude towards EU Europeans working in the UK.

But the Brexiteers won.

And Facebook, now Meta, offered Nick a position, and the whole family, with our three children, decided to follow him to Silicon Valley, where we have been for four years.

What was the best thing about California?

We experienced Biden’s victory; the covid… And it changed my life and taught the boys a lot to see how there they value what you have done more than what you are…

And more what they think you will do for them.

And they valued me a lot for having created Inspiring Girls, now in 32 countries…

How do you inspire girls?

It’s a very simple idea, which is why it’s so effective: to provide girls with female role models to inspire them to overcome the gender conventions that limit them and to have new role models.

How do they manage to inspire girls?

We bring older women to the schools so that they can talk to the little girls today, and tell them what their time at school was like; how is his career today; his life…

And do they manage to inspire?

More than we thought at first: we ask the girls, and the answers inspire us, the inspiring ones. They are fabulous.

What women bring to schools?

We started in 2013 in the UK with Inspiring Women and got 24,000 volunteers to help us; In 2016, we launched Inspiring Girls International and last year we organized 915 events in 701 schools in our 32 countries…

Your favorite campaign?

The first one in the United States was a great success: “Little girl is me”, and Melinda Gates, Annie Lennox, Arianna Huffington, Billie Jean King, Lillee Jean or Diana Russet took part… They were wonderful talks live; but we have also set up inspirational campaigns on networks and videos.

What is its main value?

We promote diversity as an opportunity for coexistence and collective growth, always from a non-political perspective, because we train and are trained, of course, in politics; but non-partisan, transversal in the ideological and open to all.

Why do they insist on diversity?

Every time you start any initiative you need diverse people on your team who see successes and mistakes differently to turn them into progress. Without diversity you do not progress.

Why do you need failures too?

This was demonstrated to me by Silicon Valley, where they value and invest in you because of the list of your previous failures when starting a business. On the other hand, our culture penalizes failure so much that it terrifies and paralyzes us and turns entrepreneurship into too risky a venture.

Can’t you think of any other initiative to inspire boys too?

We just launched Imagine for all young people to hear. And it is part of the wider España Mejor…

… And to motivate us as adults? We need it too, Miriam!

We would be content to contribute if we stopped complaining and started proactively proposing and discussing public policy proposals.

Isn’t it difficult to make proposals without falling into partisanship or ideological bias?

The collective analysis and discussion of proposals improves us all.