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Trailblazing executive Lady Barbara Judge dies aged 73

Barbara Judge  - JANE MINGAY,
Barbara Judge - JANE MINGAY,

Trailblazing businesswoman Lady Barbara Judge has died of pancreatic cancer aged 73 following decades at the top of the corporate ladder.

American-born Lady Judge broke glass ceilings all her life. She became the youngest partner of a New York law firm in 1978, after being told that being a corporate lawyer was "for tough men, not you", and two years later was named the youngest ever commissioner on the US Securities and Exchange Commission markets regulator.

She later switched to banking and became the first female director of Britain’s Samuel Montagu bank, before moving to London in 1993 to become a director of Rupert Murdoch’s News International. She was chairman of the Pension Protection Fund from 2010 to 2016 and became the first female chairman of the Institute of Directors (IoD) in 2015.

Lady Barbara Judge - MICHAEL BUHOLZER/REUTERS
Lady Barbara Judge - MICHAEL BUHOLZER/REUTERS

Described as one of the best-connected women in Britain, she once said the job that really changed her life was joining the board of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, where she later became chairman and lobbied hard for new UK nuclear plants. She was also hired to help Japan's Tepco rebuild its reputation after the Fukushima disaster.

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Lady Judge was the chairman of the IoD from 2015 until 2018, when she was ousted following a row with other bosses amid unproven allegations of racism and bullying. Her supporters always insisted the claims levelled at her were untrue.

Her son Lloyd Thomas announced her death on LinkedIn on Monday and described her as an "inspiration". She died of pancreatic cancer days after posting about her battle with the disease on her website, where she described how she was initially misdiagnosed.