Being dubbed "Katherine the Great" or "Queen of the City" may be the kind of terms with which many women in the financial services sector would like to find themselves bestowed for their achievements.

But the accolades wear a bit thin for Katherine Garrett-Cox, the chief investment officer with Aberdeen Asset Management.

"I have to say I find it rather irritating because I am quite a private person. I am often surprised by the extent to which my profile seems to be of interest to people not just in the financial industry but also outside.

"This was a sort of a tag that a journalist put on me about three years ago. I have to say I have never lived it down, so I just have to live up to everybody's expectations. So, it is a constant source of drive," she says.

That drive has seen her become one of the most powerful fund managers in the City of London.

She deals with around £36 billion sterling (€58 billion) of investors' money daily and is one of the highest paid businesswomen in Britain, commanding an annual salary in the region of £1 million sterling.

Ms Garrett-Cox was promoted to chief investment officer at Aberdeen last January after just four months heading its US desk.

She was headhunted from Hill Samuel Asset Management, where she led the hugely profitable US department, a position she attained by the tender age of 26. At Hill Samuel, the US funds she managed outperformed her rivals in Britain and the US for five years running.

"In terms of what motivates me, I think I am very determined and I'm very focused about what I do," she says.

"I try to get the best out of people and in order to do what I do on a day-to-day basis as a chief investment officer for a group which has 200 fund managers around the world, you need to be good at inter-personal skills and you need to surround yourself with quite bright young people."

She attributes her success to visiting companies in which she is considering investing.

"Everyone has a different tilt on how to do fund management. The thing that really makes me tick as a fund manager is obviously spending quite a lot of time with management. I guess I'm seeing it from both sides now because last week I was actually out on the road seeing our own shareholders. So I think as a fund manager myself I have a good understanding of what shareholders are looking for because ultimately they're the sort of questions that I spent the last 12 years asking myself when I go out to see companies I want to invest in."

But it is Ms Garrett-Cox's ability to juggle family life with her various high-pressure jobs that has also caught the imagination and led to the various superwoman-type titles with which she has been labelled over the years. She has just returned from maternity leave after the birth of her second child.

"I wouldn't say it is always easy. But ultimately it comes down to your perspective in life and I think I am a very normal person. I'm quite pragmatic and you can balance different aspects to your life providing you retain a healthy dose of humour and make sure you remain focused on the job in hand.

"People choose to pick up on that aspect of my life because I think, sadly, there aren't a lot of high-profile women doing what I do.

"Ultimately, it is a just a question of having supportive colleagues and having an extremely supportive husband and getting all of your priorities right."

While women working in the top echelons in the City of London are still in a minority, the situation is changing, albeit slowly.

"Sadly and to be honest, this is something I see on a day-to-day basis. I don't see as many women coming into our industry as I do men," she says.

"There is this sort of fictitious idea that a glass ceiling exists and if you're a man you get on and if you're a woman you don't. I think it is really about mind over matter. I have personally never experienced any sort of barriers to progress wherever I have worked."

She concedes that her high-profile job can take a heavy toll on her lifestyle.

"Generally speaking when I leave my job, I walk out the door on Friday night at 6 o'clock but I never really leave because I'm thinking about things all of the time. I'm constantly in touch. I have e-mail access at home. It's never too far from my mind. The responsibility of looking after that much money does keep me awake every now and again."

Nevertheless, her family remains her priority. "I try to keep a lot of time for my family. I try to keep evenings and weekends for family time. I also love to ski and sail. We keep a small catamaran on the south coast of England," she said.

However, one of her biggest regrets is a lack of time to indulge in her love of music, particularly playing the piano.

"I never have time to play it at the moment, which is a great sadness to me. I also play the flute and the organ but, to be honest, other than listening to music, it has taken a bit of a back seat."