Shirley Cooper OBE
Biography
Shirley is a successful business leader and entrepreneur with extensive experience gained in delivering first-class financial, commercial, and operational leadership across the Private and Public Sectors. She is a former Chair and President of the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS), her legacy as President was to create The Fellowship as it is today with over 1000 Fellows globally and is the first Chair of Fellows.
Shirley has a portfolio of appointments including a Director of SalesFilter/ UKITLeaders, with a community of 1700 senior technology leaders across the UK working with technology providers to engage, educate and enlighten.
She is an Independent Director at the Cabinet Office and recently completed her term at the Ministry of Justice as NED and interim Chair of the Audit Risk and Assurance Committee, member of several internal boards including the Information Risk and Security Board, Prison Reform Board and the NED Commercial lead.
She has also completed 9 years as Trustee and Treasurer for UNWomen UK for which she was awarded Emeritus title.
She co-founded a Start-up in 2011, Tapestry, which became a multi awarding winning global law firm, based in Yorkshire to create quality and agile global legal work in the North. Ownership of the firm was transferred to a Trust on behalf of the employees in 2020. Shirley was the Commercial and Finance Director with governance, finance, HR, IT and ESG responsibilities.
Previously holding senior commercial roles as Global Procurement Director of Impellam plc and board advisor to Lorien Resourcing; Procurement and Supply Chain Director of Computacenter and Executive Director of WE Connect International.
In her earlier career she held senior financial positions at Yorkshire Water, Leeds Hospitals and Carlsberg Tetley and Tetley’s, starting work at 18 with Rowntree Mackintosh in Halifax.
In addition, supporting many Charities and Non-Profit organsations that drive economic development and have a social impact. Shirley was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2020 for services to Women’s Empowerment, Equality and Procurement.
Small Business Crown Representative
The Small Business Crown Representative is one of a network of Crown Representatives and, alongside our VCSE Crown Representative, is focused on helping the government in its engagement with specific sectors.
- The main aim of the role is to lead on the overall relationship between the government and small businesses, making sure the government gets the best value from small business and small businesses have the best possible opportunity to work with the government.
- The postholder works with the Cabinet Office’s Small Business Advisory Panel, government departments and trade bodies to identify opportunities to tackle barriers and further level the playing field for small businesses and startups in Government procurement.
- The Small Business Crown Representative promotes the SME agenda internally and externally.
Previous roles in government
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Non-executive board member