Dame Stephanie, First Lady of tech
Dame Stephanie, First Lady of tech
The most inspiring businesswoman I have encountered, bar none, is Dame Stephanie Shirley, a tech pioneer, philanthropist and champion of women at work.
Now 86, she arrived in Britain as a five-year-old in 1939 in the Kindertransport of Jewish children fleeing the Nazis.
She battled sexism barely imaginable to modern women, even calling herself ‘Steve’ and pretending to be a man to be taken seriously when she set up her company in 1962, employing women as freelance computer programers.
She made £150 million when her firm, FI Group, floated on the stock market in the Nineties, and gave away £69 million to good causes.
Opticians chain Specsavers was the brainchild of Dame Mary Perkins (pictured)
A clear vision for Specsavers
The opticians chain Specsavers was the brainchild of Dame Mary Perkins, 76, and her husband, Doug, who came up with the idea 35 years ago.
It is now an international empire with 2,000 stores in ten countries, including 900 in the UK and Ireland, global revenues of £2.7billion and more than 32,000 employees.
Back in the Sixties, Dame Mary broke with conventional feminine roles to become an optometrist, and was only one of five female students on her university degree course.
Now she has seven grandchildren, still works nine-to-five and supports Everywoman, an organisation backing women in business.
Clare Gilmartin runs ticketing app Trainline
In the driving seat at Trainline
At the age of just 44, Clare Gilmartin is already a multi-millionaire. When the company she runs, the online ticketing app Trainline, floated on the stock market last year for £2billion, she cashed in a £16 million stake.
She held on to a large chunk which is worth millions more, even though the share price has fallen during the Covid-19 crisis. A modest, but steely Irishwoman, she was given the job of chief executive of Trainline when she was pregnant with her third child.
‘I believe strongly the world needs more women in leadership,’ she told me last year.
Dame Sharon White, new chairman of department store John Lewis
Taking the reins at John Lewis
Middle Britain’s favourite department store John Lewis is going through tough times, with falling sales and profits and several stores being closed, but its new chairman, Dame Sharon White, is one of the most formidable operators in business and in Whitehall.
She became the first female and the first BAME chairman when she took over at the retailer in February.
The 53-year-old Cambridge graduate, who is married with two children, won the respect of the City in her previous role as chief executive of telecoms regulator Ofcom.
Alison Rose, the first female chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland since it was founded in 1727
Banker bailing out families
Her career would make her the envy of any banker, male or female. But when I spoke to Alison Rose, the first female chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland since it was founded in 1727, she claimed to be ‘nothing special’.
If she can do it, she insisted, then any woman can reach the top, too. The 51-year-old mother of two is determined to break with the toxic legacy of predecessor Fred Goodwin. Under her direction, the Bank has led the way in handing out loans to help firms and families survive the pandemic.
She has also set up a £1 bn fund to support female entrepreneurs after leading a research project that found businesswomen faced unfair barriers.
Emma Walmsley has run GSK, one of the world’s largest drugs companies, since 2017
On the hunt for a Covid cure
The coolly intelligent and poised Emma Walmsley, 51, is one of the most formidable executives on the FTSE 100.
Since 2017 she has been running GSK, one of the largest drugs companies in the world, with revenues of nearly £34 bn last year.
A mother of four, she is living proof of what can be achieved by a woman boss who is unencumbered by male ego.
She set up a partnership with Sanofi of France to produce a Covid-19 vaccine — a highly unusual move for two rival firms of this size. If it works, it will be an example of how co-operative female leadership style could pay dividends for us all.
Dame Carolyn McCall who enjoyed a successful seven-year tenure as easyJet chief executive
High flier whose career took off
At a dinner just after she had been made chief executive of easyJet, Carolyn McCall was taunted by male guests with cries of ‘Doors to manual.’
She had the last laugh, though, as her seven-year tenure at the airline was a huge success. Passenger numbers rose to record highs and the share price almost quadrupled.
Dame Carolyn. 58, even won the admiration of Michael O’ Leary, head of rival Ryanair, who initially labelled her a media luvvie, referring to her previous job at The Guardian, but later admitted he had underestimated her.
The going is tough at her new berth, ITV, where advertising has been hammered by the pandemic.