TED Talk with Dame Stephanie Shirley: Why Do Ambitious Women Have Flat Heads?

    The resource above is a TED Talk speech given by Dame Stephanie Shirley who is the founder of software company Freelance Programmers and was the first female President of the chartered British Computer Society from 1989 to 1990 and Master of the IT livery company 1992/93.

    In this video, Dame Stephanie Shirley shares her stories about challenging conventions, glass ceilings, trying new things that enables people, especially women to think about why we work, what we should work for and how we could work.

    Here are some quotes from the talk that I think are inspiring to women who intend to overcome gender biases and achieve success.

“Nobody really expected much from people at work or in society because all the expectations then were about home and family responsibilities. And I couldn't really face that, so I started to challenge the conventions of the time, even to the extent of changing my name from ‘Stephanie’ to ‘Steve’ in my business development letters, so as to get through the door before anyone realized that he was a she.”

“When I started my company of women, the men said, ‘How interesting, because it only works because it's small.’ And later, as it became sizable, they accepted, ‘Yes, it is sizable now, but of no strategic interest.’ And later, when it was a company valued at over three billion dollars, and I'd made 70 of the staff into millionaires, they sort of said, ‘Well done, Steve!’”

“It's one thing to have an idea for an enterprise, but as many people in this room will know, making it happen is a very difficult thing and it demands extraordinary energy, self-belief and determination, the courage to risk family and home, and a 24/7 commitment that borders on the obsessive. So it's just as well that I'm a workaholic. I believe in the beauty of work when we do it properly and in humility. Work is not just something I do when I'd rather be doing something else.”