#205 Dame Stephanie 'Steve' Shirley: How To Let It Go

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emma gannon

Authors, Wellbeing, Arts, Books, Social Media, Creativity

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 20 June 2019

⏱️ 27 minutes

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Summary

Dame Stephanie Shirley is tech pioneer, entrepreneur and philanthropist. She also goes by the name "Steve" which she used to sign business letters to potential clients when they were not responding to her. If you haven't already, go and watch her Ted Talk it is funny and moving and super interesting to hear what it was like being a woman in tech during the 60s.

In 1939 Steve arrived in Britain unaccompanied, as child refugee during the war, and when she was 29 she started what became her multimillion-pound IT software consultancy, from which she made a £150m fortune - on her dining room table with £6 in 1962.

She retired in 1993 to concentrate on philanthropic work, since then she has given away at least £65 million via her charity Shirley Foundation. She continues to give to a range of causes including autism research, a cause she was drawn to through her late son Giles who had autism. Her Damehood in the Millennium honours was for services to IT.

She was awarded the Order of Companions of Honour in the Queen's Birthday Honours in June 2017.

Aged 85 she remains married to her first husband Derek.

In this episode, we talk about her brilliant memoir Let It Go. In this episode we talk about workplace misogyny, making money, resilience, giving back, and why it's importance to keep learning.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode of Control-Or Delete is sponsored by King Fisher, the company behind
0:05.0	recognizable home improvement brands such as B&Q and Screw Fix, who help make better homes
0:10.4	accessible for everyone. And who, by the way, doesn't love a pop down to be in queue? I definitely do.
0:16.0	Kingfisher have recently partnered with Google Cloud, a collaboration that together will support and prepare for retail's next digital age.
0:24.3	From infrastructure to data analytics, they are looking for the right people to help them succeed,
0:29.8	and that could be you.
0:31.2	They're looking for tech professionals interested in software engineering, data
0:35.0	analytics, data science, e-commerce and much more. They also have a range of brilliant benefits,
0:41.0	competitive salaries, private health care for the family, and an outstanding pension scheme.
0:46.0	So if you're interested, go to careers. Kingfisher.com today to find out more about their tech and digital roles.
0:53.7	Thank you so much to King Fisher for sponsoring this podcast.
0:56.7	Hello and welcome back to another episode of Control-Or Delete. My guest today is an absolute
1:08.7	icon, entrepreneur, philanthropist. she is Dame Stephanie Shirley, and she also goes by the name
1:17.8	Steve when you meet her because that is the nickname that she used to sign business
1:22.4	letters to potential clients when they were not responding to her and it's a name that has stuck.
1:28.0	If you haven't already, go and watch her TED Talk. It's so funny and moving and super interesting to hear all about her life and what it was like being a woman in tech during the 60s.
1:40.0	And she is just such a phenomenal and inspiring woman and I'm so thrilled that she came
1:47.2	on to this podcast. It was a real real highlight for me. So just to go back to the
1:51.9	beginning for her introduction just so I can set the scene before you listen to the episode in
1:58.8	1939 Dame Stephanie a K Steve arrived in Britain unaccompanied as a child refugee during the war.
2:07.4	When she was 29, she started what would become her multi-million pound IT software consultancy from her dining room table and she made an absolute fortune.
2:20.0	It's just so interesting to hear how she did it all because she started it with six pounds in 1962
	...

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