James Foley's personal profile from the James Foley website.

I'm often asked what makes me keep on working, what gives me the drive to continue. It's true that now, at the age of 62, I could retire and lead a quiet life. My wife Rosemary would certainly not object, and I would no doubt find more time to visit our wonderful daughters, Kirsty and Rebecca, who live respectively in London and Toronto. Furthermore, I enjoy gardening, classical music and painting - it's always been a dream of mine to paint the beautiful landscapes to be found in my native Scotland - so I wouldn't be short of activities to keep me busy.

Retirement, therefore, is indeed an appealing prospect - but not just yet. I'm still in good health, and more than all the pastimes I've mentioned, I enjoy running a business. I would be dishonest if I said that money was of no importance to me, but it isn't for the money itself that I work - it's for the satisfaction of building a business that succeeds. That's what makes me get up every day at six a.m., read all those memos and reports, attend all those meetings and travel the world to make sure that everything is going according to plan. When you run a business like mine, there's never a dull moment.

My current projects are both exciting and varied. I hope to expand our modelling agency, Beautiful Babes, by opening a branch in China. Clearly there's a huge market there for all sorts of consumer goods, and companies will need to advertise, but so far there are very few well-organised agencies that can handle that sort of demand. Since we believe that there is not one single standard of beauty, and that the wonder of this world lies in its diversity, our policy, as always, is to hire and train local men and women to promote both Chinese and western products. Working with the Chinese can be difficult - they are tough negotiators and can drive a hard bargain, but I'm sure it will be very rewarding.

Another project of mine is BeeBee cosmetics. Developed in association with the pharmaceutical company Biomed, BeeBee is a range of beauty products which makes use of the latest research into cell regeneration. I'm a firm believer in the benefits to be had from combining nature and science, and when we thought of diversifying into cosmetics, we explored the amazing properties of that highly familiar, yet quite extraordinary substance, honey. Hence the name BeeBee! And I can assure you that if all our models at Beautiful Babes stay beautiful longer than any others, it's because they rely on BeeBee. But although BeeBee is based upon honey and other 100% natural products, it would not work without the intensive research conducted into cell regeneration at the Biomed Research and Development Unit near Manchester. The findings that have come out of that research have not only been vital in allowing us to develop a whole new range of revolutionary skin care products, but are also likely to lead to applications in the medical field.

So now you see why I don't want to retire just yet! If I could be granted one wish, I would ask for each day to be extended by at least another ten hours - then I might have time to fit in everything I want!