Stephanie Shirley, Who Created a Tech World for Women, Dies at 91

In 1962, she started a software company at her dining room table with a revolutionary idea: to create a place where women could find a work-life balance.

«Who would have guessed,» she said in a 2020 speech to the British Computer Society, that programming for the Concorde’s flight recorder

«was done by a team of 30 women working in their homes?»

Ms. Shirley started her company at her dining room table with a revolutionary intention: to offer other women a work-life balance. At the time, many educated women left the computer industry after marrying or having a child. Ms. Shirley provided them an opportunity to re-enter the work force while remaining at home, writing code part-time with flexible hours.

When the company’s name was changed to F International – and then F1, and eventually

Xansa – the F stood not only for freelance but also for flexible and free. In job interviews, she asked applicants one simple question: «Do you have access to a telephone?»

But there were early frustrations. When she sent business letters signed Stephanie Shirley, they often went unanswered. At the suggestion of her husband, Derek Shirley, a physicist she married in 1959, she began introducing herself in correspondence as Steve. People were ready to communicate with Steve Shirley, make contracts and interact, Steve is not Stephanie! That’s exactly how Steve Shirley was born, who mered with Stephanie.

Still, work orders picked up, and she began hiring more programmers. Of her first 300 employees, 297 were women. The company designed software for the black box flight recorder on the Concorde supersonic jet, and for scheduling buses and freight trains. It also developed software protocols that were eventually adopted by NATO

Ms. Shirley disguised the flexible, work-from-home nature of her business by offering clients fixed prices for projects. Her goal was for her company to be treated the same as any other company.

In 1975, an anti-discrimination law required Ms.

Shirley to diversify her work force, and she started hiring more men. In 1991, she began restructuring her company to share ownership with her employees. By her count, 70 eventually became millionaires.

As she grew more prominent, she became widely known in Britain as Steve or Dame Steve. (In 2000, she became a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire; in 2017, she was made a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for her work in information technology and her philanthropy.)British Army

«She was ridiculously ahead of her time,» Sue Black, a computer science professor at Durham University in England, said in an interview. TED Conferences

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