Dame Sharon White is a Visiting Professor in Practice at the School of Public Policy with an impressive career as a civil servant and businesswoman, having served more than 15 years in the UK public service and held leading roles at the top of large, complex organisations in both the public and private sectors. She brings with her a deep understanding of the interface between commercial decision-making, regulation, public policy and politics.
From February 2020 to September 2024, Sharon was the sixth Executive Chairman of the John Lewis Partnership (JLP), heading the UK’s largest employee-owned business. Sharon joined JLP after four years as the Chief Executive of the Office of Communications (Ofcom), the UK’s media, telecoms, and postal regulator, from 2015-2019. Before joining Ofcom, Sharon was Second Permanent Secretary at the HM Treasury, where she was responsible for overseeing the UK’s public finances and supervising a review of the Treasury’s management response to the international financial crisis of 2007-2008.
Sharon trained as an economist and studied at Cambridge University and University College London (UCL) before starting a brilliant career working in public service. She has dedicated much of her career on reforming UK public services and the welfare system, serving as: lead adviser on welfare reform to Prime Minister Tony Blair (1997-1999); First Secretary at the UK Embassy in Washington, DC advising on US welfare reform, the US economy and banking (1995-1997); Director of Welfare to Work at the Department for Work and Pensions (2005-2007); and Chief Executive of the Office of Criminal Justice Reform at the Ministry of Justice, coordinating courts, prisons, and police (2009-2011).
Sharon also has a wealth of experience working in international development through roles at the World Bank in Washington, DC where her work focused on poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, but also working as a Director General at the UK Department for International Development (DFID), where she led on the reconstruction of Libya after the 2011 civil war in a UK government taskforce.
In 2020, Sharon was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2020 New Year Honours for her public service. She was also named UK’s most influential black person by Powerlist in 2022) and ranked 75th on Fortune’s list of Most Powerful Women in 2023.