From Fleeing Nazism to Tech Titan--The Inspiring Journey of Dame Stephanie "Steve" Shirley
In the realm of computing pioneers, Dame Stephanie "Steve" Shirley stands out as one of the most celebrated figures, not only for building a £3 billion tech empire in 1960s England but also for doing so with a workforce comprised of women, working from home—qualified professionals who had left the workforce after marriage and children.
Hitting the glass ceiling herself multiple times, Shirley set out to establish her own software enterprise for women, by women. She and her employees pioneered the idea of women re-entering the workforce after a career break and promoted flexible working methods, job sharing, profit-sharing, and company co-ownership.
Born Vera Buchthal in 1933 in Dortmund, Germany, she fled Nazi Europe through the Kindertransport rescue effort before the outbreak of World War II.
She lived with foster parents in Sutton Coldfield, England, and attended the Oswestry Girls' High School. Unfortunately, her school didn't teach mathematics, so she took classes at the boys' school in town.
She attended COMPSAC, the IEEE Computer Society's signature conference on computers, software, and applications.
Later in life, she founded a home-based programming company in 1962, exclusively for women, called "Freelance Programmers," which eventually employed over 8,500 people. The company grew rapidly and went public in 1996. Ultimately, her company was valued at £3 billion, making millionaires out of 70 of her team members. Shirley's company was responsible for programming the black box for the supersonic Concorde. She and her employees also contributed to the development of software standards, management control protocols, and other standards that were eventually adopted by NATO.
But building a giant corporation in post-war Britain came with its own unique challenges. Marie Hicks, a history professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, interviewed Shirley for an article in 2018 on behalf of the Computer History Museum. She explored Shirley's early life, influences, flair for mathematics, business acumen, and ambition.
Here are some of the more provocative quotes from that interview: How she started a company for women, how she escaped the Nazis, how she found her first job, how she began her career, how she soldiered through discrimination, and how she donated a fortune to autism research while raising an autistic son.
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How Dame Stephanie Shirley Started a Company Just for Women
"My business was very special. It was a women's company in the computing industry; 297 out of the first 300 employees were all women.
"It was truly a women-friendly organization. It was set up more as a crusade than to make money, and indeed it took a long time to make money, and I was really proud when I managed to establish this special company for women. Again, another first, I thought, because I had to justify my existence."
On Escaping the Nazis
"It is as potent today as it was 75 years ago, when, traumatized at the age of five, crying, I was put on a train and sent to a strange country with strange languages, strange people, strange parents, strange food. I think it would have been disastrous if I hadn’t had my nine-year-old sister, who wasn’t quite ready to take care of a younger brother," Shirley said.
"But what made that two-and-a-half-day transition from Vienna to Liverpool Street Station in London manageable for me was that it made me able to cope with change, and I think that's relevant to my technical career."
Check out our online resources for women in computing.
On Forging Her Career
"A lodger my mother knew knew someone who knew someone who worked at the Post Research Station, and I had a similar introduction with another corporation and I had interviews with both.
"The first one, the General Electric Company, was okay and so forth, but they weren't very interested in me, in my future, in my training and education continuing, and so even though they offered me a job, I went with the Post, because they were clearly interested in continuing education."
On Changing Her Name from "Stephanie" to "Steve"
"I had already launched my own business when I started to become professional. I wasn’t just relying on presentations, but actually, we'd go out and do marketing and get new business, and in a very naive way, I was literally writing dozens of letters, presenting my company’s services and not getting any responses at all.
"My dear husband of now 50 years was the one who suggested actually, 'Well, maybe it’s the name.' I was writing under this double feminine, Stephanie Shirley, Shirley being my married name. He asked, 'Why don’t you use Steve's family nickname?' so I wrote exactly the same letters as Steve Shirley and started to get some responses."
On Meeting Margaret Thatcher
Dame Stephanie Shirley with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
On Hiring Gays and Lesbians
"When the company was small, we knew a lot about each other's families. We knew which child had got measles. When it came to gay and lesbian, we might have guessed. It probably wouldn’t have been something we talked about. It wasn’t relevant to our mobility, which was something we were always very interested in. It’s clear we attracted a lot of lesbian staff; we hired thousands of people over the years, of course."
On How the Private Sector Provided More Opportunities for Women
"No one could say I couldn’t do that if the regulation said I could. In my generation of women, there were lots of things you couldn’t do. A college I attended part-time didn’t have ladies' lavatories.
"In fact, my job would have entailed going on a cable ship [a deep-sea vessel designed to lay underwater cables for telecommunications or electrical power transmission] and I couldn’t do that. Women just didn’t go on working ships. I couldn’t work at the Stock Exchange.
"I could write software for the London Stock Exchange, but I couldn’t work there. I couldn’t drive a bus, I couldn’t fly an airplane. Those were legislative things, and the public sector was very strict about those things...".
Shirley's Life After Retirement
Since retiring, Shirley has spent her time supporting various IT-related causes and most recently, organizations researching and providing services for those with autism.
Her interest in autism has personal roots.
"I have stepped back to some extent from computing and really become a manager, a businesswoman, and later, with the need to care for my son with learning disabilities, autistic, into a philanthropist. That's what I do now. I try to give money in a wise way," Shirley says.
On What She Chose as Philanthropy
"Autism is a peculiar disorder. It is known to be genetic, but we don’t know much about it. What we know is that it’s difficult to treat and difficult for people with autism. I set up several charities in the autism area and so my experience is through them.
"A child who rushes in all directions might wear a Fitbit bracelet today to see what’s going on there. They might be monitored how they sleep, when they sleep, and so forth. They might use fingerprints as access keys, because child protection is very important for these very, very vulnerable