Page 28 - 2018 Powerlist

The Top 10

4

Sharon White

Chief Executive,
Ofcom

hen she was appointed chief executive of Ofcom Cambridge, Sharon spent a brief time working for a church
in 2015, Sharon became the first woman and the in a deprived part of Birmingham before joining the Civil
Wfirst black person to lead the media regulator – as Service in 1989 as a graduate entry economist at what was
well as the first black woman to have such a senior role in any then the Department for Education and Science.
UK media organisation. She quickly moved to the Treasury where she held a series
During her tenure she has already had to tackle weighty of jobs on the public spending side of the department. The
and controversial issues, not least the Murdoch empire’s bid high-flyer spent time in Washington at the British Embassy
for 21st Century Fox to take over Sky in an £11.7 billion deal. and in the Number 10 policy unit.
Earlier this year, just weeks before Ofcom took over She was appointed to work on international development
regulation of the BBC, Sharon said the BBC had failed older at the World Bank before agreeing to take the post of policy
women and minorities by focusing on the “middle-aged and director at the Department for International Development.
middle class”. She would not rule out quotas as a way of Her return to domestic policy was marked by a move to
tackling the issue. the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry
Under Ofcom’s wide-reaching proposals for the BBC, the of Justice before rejoining the Treasury in 2011 to lead the
regulator said it would establish a new Diversity Code of White Review of the Treasury’s management response to the
Practice and ask the BBC to report annually on how it has banking crisis. Sharon and her husband Robert Chote, the
reflected, represented and served the diverse communities of chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility are known
the UK. A consultation on the plans closed in July and a final as “Mr and Mrs Treasury”.
plan will be published in the autumn. Sharon was born in east London and grew up in Leyton,
Prior to her role at Ofcom, Sharon was one of the most where she went to a single-sex comprehensive school.
powerful women in Whitehall, overseeing the UK’s spending She later went to Cambridge University and University
cuts as a senior Treasury official. After graduating from College London.

24 Powerlist 2018