Dame Stephanie Shirley was known to business contacts as Steve because in a male-dominated business world she would sign letters with her pen name. She has an amazing book called, “Let It Go” where she documents her life and starts with her experience as an unaccompanied child refugee at age 5 where her parents wanted to protect her from perishing in the Holocaust. Her early experience of the ‘glass ceiling’ at work because of gender discrimination encouraged her to set up her own business which, she did in 1962 with only 6 pounds. Dame created one of UK’s first software startups. She forged the path for not only women but the whole computing industry. While planning to start a family, Dame hit on the idea of offering part-time employment to professional women with dependants. Essentially, she had pioneered freelance driven business and wanted it to be woman-owned. The IT business prospered with a lot of hard work and, in 1996 the company was floated on the London Stock Exchange earning hundreds of millions of pounds and had employed 8,500 people. This wealth has enabled her to devote her time and resources to giving something back to society, Dame ranks among the world’s leading philanthropists. In 2013, she appeared on BBC Radio and discussed why she had given away more than £67 million of her personal wealth to different projects. She has supported strategic projects in the fields of autism (her son, Giles was autistic) and IT. Her focus on autism is done via The Shirley Foundation. They facilitate scientific research aimed to understand what Autism is as opposed to what it looks like.

Click to Watch – Hear about breaking the glass ceiling!