Obituary: Dame Stephanie ‘Steve’ Shirley, founder, entrepreneur and philanthropist
The expertise sector misplaced an awesome on 11 August 2025, with the passing of Dame Stephanie Shirley on the age of 91.
Extra affectionately generally known as Steve, Shirley was a serial founder, entrepreneur and philanthropist who was a part of the expertise sector for over half a century.
Initially from Germany, aged 5, Shirley – who on the time was named Vera Buchthal – was one of many 1000’s of youngsters who got here to the UK on The Kindertransport earlier than the outbreak of the Second World Warfare.
She grew up together with her sister and foster mother and father within the West Midlands, growing a background in expertise and arithmetic from a younger age, and after college, she bought a job constructing computer systems and coding for the Submit Workplace Analysis Station in Dollis Hill.
After doing night time courses to realize a level in arithmetic, she then went on to get a job at one other expertise firm.
However this was throughout a time when ladies have been much less equal to males than they’re now, and Shirley grew to become annoyed with the disparity confronted by ladies each out and in of the office.
Wanting to alter issues for the higher, she took her husband Derek’s recommendation and adopted her household nickname, Steve, to be taken severely after efforts to start out her personal firm fell on deaf ears as soon as it was clear she was a lady.
Versatile working
Shirley was a pioneer in versatile working, founding a expertise firm known as Freelance Programmers in 1962. Candidates have been requested if they’d entry to a phone, as there was no workplace, so the employees of predominantly ladies labored from house promoting software program and programming.
She as soon as informed Laptop Weekly it will be unlawful for her to arrange an organization in the identical manner at the moment. “You couldn’t probably have an organization that got down to be gendered,” stated Shirley. “I intentionally tried to construct an organization that was female-friendly and a campaign for an organization by ladies for girls.”
She needed the corporate to be one she would need to work for, and over time it made her and lots of of her staff thousands and thousands.
Renamed Xansa, the corporate grew to greater than 8,000 folks earlier than being bought to Steria in 2007.
Shirley used this wealth for her philanthropic efforts, which has seen her fund a number of charities and foundations, and has been predominantly pushed by assist for her late son, Giles, who was severely autistic and epileptic.
She initially based a residential house for folks with extreme autism, known as Kingwood, with the purpose of giving her son what he wanted to reside one of the best life attainable.
Following this, she additionally based The Shirley Basis, Prior’s Courtroom Faculty for college kids with autism, and UK autism analysis charity Autistica, all aimed toward making the lives of people with autism higher.
Philanthropic endeavours
Throughout her lifetime, Shirley spent thousands and thousands of kilos supporting charities and different philanthropic endeavours.
In assist of the expertise sector, she additionally helped fund – and was a grasp of – tech-focused charity The Worshipful Firm of Data Technologists, and was a founding donor and co-founder of The Oxford Web Institute in 2001.
Shirley has been recognised for her relentless work for girls, expertise and people with autism, and in 2017, was awarded a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) for her companies to tech and philanthropy – she has additionally been awarded an OBE and a DBE.
When Laptop Weekly launched its Most Influential Girls in UK Tech Corridor of Fame in 2015, Shirley was considered one of solely three who made the preliminary listing.
She was an inspiration for a lot of, and seems in each the Bletchley Park and California computing museums.
Shirley has claimed previously that her childhood made her attempt to ensure her life had been “price saving” by bringing her to the UK as a younger youngster, and her unbelievable life stuffed with extraordinary achievements proves she succeeded in that purpose.
She can be enormously and sadly missed.
