IWD26 Episode 5 of 7: Stephanie Shirley

So, it’s getting closer to International Women’s Day (IWD) 8 March and the mood music is definitely changing a gear or two… or at least it is in my head.

And let me start with this: I’m genuinely glad we’ve moved head and shoulders ahead in society.

In the early 00s, I worked alongside a formidable woman, the founder of a recruitment agency, and when I met her she’d just turned 80. A self-made multi-millionaire with very humble beginnings. She told me that in her early days (late 1960s), she never signed off with her first name, “Shelia”, because she was working in a man’s world and didn’t want to be marginalised before she’d even walked into the room. She built her business, grew it, and sold it in the late 80s for millions.

I remember thinking… I don’t put Miss, Mrs or Ms on my signature strip. Was that conscious? Or unconscious? I’d like to say it was some grand statement, but the truth is probably simpler: I was proud of who I was, and I didn’t think it should matter. Also, I’ve gone from Miss to Mrs to Ms and back again, and to be perfectly honest, I didn’t have time for a running commentary on my personal status when I had a job to do. (And if we’re being upfront, for anyone who knows me they know I’m married to my job anyway.)

Which brings me to Episode 5 of my IWD spotlights and this week I’m shining the light on Stephanie… or “Steve”. I’d love to hear what you think and if you’ve had to navigate in a similar way, but I think she’s pretty awesome. And she reminded me of those fun, scrappy, forge-your-own-path moments that shape a career.

 

Sometimes the most revealing stories are the smallest ones.

Dame Stephanie Shirley began signing her business letters “Steve” because she knew that in that era, a woman’s name could close doors before her capability even entered the room.

It wasn’t a gimmick. It was a workaround for a system that wouldn’t meet her fairly.

There is a particular kind of courage that comes from that reality, not just recognising bias, but refusing to be defined by it.

Her life story is extraordinary long before we even get to the business. She arrived in Britain as a five-year-old child refugee, sent here alone to escape Nazi Europe. She grew up safe but never untouched by the knowledge that stability cannot be taken for granted. Security, identity, belonging… they can change quickly. And when they do, you rebuild.

That theme quietly shaped everything she later did.

By the 1960s she was a trained mathematician and programmer and repeatedly overlooked for promotion. Not because she lacked ability, but because the workplace had already decided what leadership looked like.

 

So, she stopped trying to fit the system. She redesigned it.

In 1962 she founded a software company from her dining table. But the real innovation wasn’t the company, it was the people.

She employed women working from home: mothers, carers, and those whose lives didn’t follow predictable routines. Highly skilled individuals excluded not because they weren’t good enough but because “traditional employment” required physical presence and uninterrupted careers.

She understood something that still trips us up today:

Talent is everywhere. Opportunity is not.

And this is why her story matters so deeply to us.

Across the Armed Forces community, we meet exceptional people whose careers pause, relocate, restart and reshape. Partners rebuilding after postings. Veterans stepping out of structured service into an unstructured civilian world. People not lacking capability but lacking a system that recognises how their lives actually operate.

Decades before we had today’s language, flexible working, portfolio careers, entrepreneurship-as-resilience, Steve Shirley proved something simple:

• When work adapts to real life, people thrive.
• When people are forced to adapt to rigid work, talent is lost.

Her company became one of the UK’s most successful software businesses. Many of the women she hired became financially independent for the first time. And later in life, she gave away most of her wealth because her mission was never simply commercial success; it was social usefulness.

I chose Dame Stephanie “Steve” Shirley for this IWD spotlight because she feels intensely modern. Her insight is the insight we still need today: capability is rarely the problem structure is.

And for partners and spouses in particular, this is not theoretical. It is lived.

A career can be disrupted by posting cycles, childcare, housing moves, gaps in networks, and the invisible labour of holding family life together while someone serves. Too often, society frames this as an individual “confidence” issue.

But Steve Shirley shows us a different truth: This isn’t about fixing women. It’s about fixing access.

 

So, here’s the so what for all of us.

If we are serious about supporting partners and spouses, we have to stop treating flexible work and enterprise as “nice extras” and start treating them as economic infrastructure.

We need to normalise non-linear careers and stop punishing gaps that come from service life. We need pathways into enterprise and portfolio careers that feel credible, structured and supported. We need communities of connection, so people aren’t doing this alone. And we need practical enablers: mentoring, confidence through action, access to customers, and access to finance.

Because what partners and spouses need is not just inspiration.

They need open doors.

Steve Shirley built one from her dining table and proved that when you design work around real lives, you don’t just change careers. You change futures.

So, what conversations are happening around your dining room table?

 

Join us: IWD Webinar at ARU

As a Visiting Professor at Anglia Ruskin University, I’ll be hosting an IWD webinar on:

Tuesday 3 March 2026 | 13:00–14:00 (UK) with Keynote: Claire Kennedy (PPL) and Prof Gary Packham.

Register for free here

Together, we’ll unpack:

• the history and what it asks of us today,
• the realities women are navigating now, and
• how a “Give To Gain” mindset can shape a better future practically, not performatively.