Dame Stephanie “Steve” Shirley is a philanthropist and The Shirley Foundation is one of the top 50 grant-giving foundations in Britain. She arrived in Britain on the Kinderstransport in 1939, aged five. In 1962, she founded her first software company and went by the name “Steve” to open doors in the male-dominated business world. She retired in 1993 with an estimated £150 million fortune. Dame Stephanie now concentrates on philanthropic work and donates to autism research.