Wingwomen Realtalk with Dame Stephanie Shirley CH

If you want to make a difference with your business, or as an entrepreneurial employee, a lot of people will tell you what you cannot do, that it won’t work and why you aren’t the right person to do it. What do you do? 

Join Valerie Mocker as she talks to tech entrepreneur and philanthropist Dame Stephanie Shirley CH, who built one of England’s first billion-dollar software companies - run by women working from home! Dame Stephanie shares with us why ambitious women have flat heads, why you should not shy away from the rooms of power and how you rewrite the rules when everybody tells you it cannot be done.

About Dame Stephanie Shirley CH: Dame Stephanie (Steve) Shirley CH is a workplace revolutionary and successful IT entrepreneur turned ardent philanthropist. She came to Britain as an unaccompanied Kindertransport refugee fleeing Nazi Germany. In 1962 she started a software house, Freelance Programmers, that pioneered new work practices and changed the position of professional women, especially in hi-tech. She went on to create a global business and a personal fortune shared with her colleagues, making 70 of her staff millionaires. Her charitable Shirley Foundation has initiated and funded a number of projects that are pioneering by nature and strategic in impact, totally £67m to date. Dame Stephanie has been much honoured and received a Companion of Honour, one of only 65 people worldwide to receive such a recognition.

About Valerie Mocker: Valerie is an internationally renowned speaker, entrepreneur, board member and tech-for-good investor - and the founder of Wingwomen. Named one of Europe's 40 under 40 leaders, Valerie got into many rooms of power in her twenties and became the youngest Director at innovation fund Nesta. Whether she funded digial education or news innovation, the barrier to real change always were the rooms of power where too often a small, homogenous group of people blocks real change. That's why Valerie founded the Wingwomen Academy, which trains up a new generation of great (female) leaders across the world for the rooms of power. Valerie is a contributor and columnist for newspapers including the BBC, Handelsblatt and Die Zeit and serves on the board of Wikipedia/Wikimedia. 

This Wingwomen Realtalk runs in partnership with Global Entrepreneurship Week.

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