Born in Perth and educated at Perth High School, Ann Gloag trained to be a nurse and went on to become a sister in a burns unit for some 20 years.
Extracts from the accompanying The Greatest Scot television programme are being added to these biographical notes as the programme is broadcast between November 9 and 13. If you live outside the UK, you will not be able to see these, but you may enjoy other videos about some of the subjects which are available via links in the text.
She established the Stagecoach bus company with her husband Robin and brother Brian Souter in 1980. One of the early gimmicks was offering sandwiches - made by her and her mother. Stagecoach are now one of the most successful independent transport operators in the UK, and operates services in seven other countries.
Ann and her brother have a combined wealth of £1.3 billion and she is ranked as Scotland's richest woman and one of the top-50 female entrepreneurs in the world. But her life has been touched by tragedy. Her son Jonathan, who would have inherited a substantial share of the Stagecoach empire, committed suicide in 1999 at the age of 28.
The following year, she announced she would take a back-seat in the running of the company. More recently her husband Robin died in a car crash. She has since remarried and has three stepchildren along with her surviving daughter Pamela. She also formally adopted an African boy, Peter, though he too was injured in a car crash earlier this year. It is not yet clear if he will recover full use of his lower limbs.
Through her Balcraig Foundation, she has been a generous contributor to various charities ranging from a £150,000 horticultural centre in Perth to the £4m Mercy Ship, equipped with six operating theatres, 95 beds and 20 Land Rovers, which tours the coast of Africa bringing aid to some of the world's poorest people. The National Council of Women of the United States, a U.N. affiliate, recently chose Ann to receive its inaugural Susan B. Anthony Humanitarian Award, named after the only woman to appear on a U.S. coin and one of America’s most famous human rights pioneers.
She was honoured with an OBE recognising her charitable works (2004) and was listed as one of Scotland's most powerful women in the same year.
