Head of Marketing and External Relations, Cambridge Enterprise

In 1999 Shirley co-authored the successful bid on behalf of the University of Cambridge to create the Cambridge Entrepreneurship Centre. Shirley was Head of External Relations at the Centre which in 2004 evolved into Cambridge Enterprise, an organisation that is dedicated to helping University of Cambridge inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs make their ideas and concepts more commercially successful for the benefit of society, the UK economy, the inventors and the University.

Shirley has extensive experience of start up companies from her experience of working for over fifteen years in executive search - first for Egon Zehnder International as a Researcher, and then for six years as Managing Director of Scientific Resources, part of the Generics Group. During the mid 1990's she ran her own consultancy firm specialising in senior appointments for technology-based companies.

In 2002 she was the Cambridge Evening News "Business Woman of the Year". She has been a Governor of Anglia Ruskin University since 1993.