To learn more about the extraordinary life and achievements of Dame Stephanie visit her website.

Dame Stephanie (Steve) Shirley (75) is a highly successful entrepreneur turned ardent philanthropist. She arrived in Britain as an unaccompanied child refugee from Germany in 1939, and in 1962 started the leading business technology group that became Xansa (acquired by Steria in 2007).  Since retiring as its honorary Life President, she has since served on a number of corporate boards, and was made a dame in the Millennium Honours List for services to the computing industry.

Her focus is increasingly on philanthropy. Her main interests are autism (her autistic son Giles died aged 35 in 1998) and making better use of information technology in the voluntary sector.

Her charitable Shirley Foundation is one of the top 50 grant-giving foundations in the UK with  £55m donated in the recent years. It has initiated a number of pioneering and now self-sustaining projects including Kingwood (long term care for adults with autism); Prior's Court  (residential school for children with autism); autismconnect (first web user community to deal with disability issues on the Internet); Autism Cymru (the organisation to promote the development of services to people with autism in Wales); and the Oxford Internet Institute (the world's first truly multidisciplinary Internet Institute based in a major university).

Dame Stephanie’s prime focus is now as President of Autistica.