First female ICAEW president - Sheila Masters

Sheila Masters was born in 1949 and went to Eltham Hill Grammar School. She graduated in law from the University of Bristol, where she was 'the outstanding student of the year' in her second year.  In 1970 she became articled to  P.G. Corbett FCA  of Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co. (now KPMG) with the intention of joining the Revenue Bar after qualifying. She later said that it was very hard for women to join a City law firm or the Bar without family connections, but slightly easier for women to join an accountancy firm. Even so, Masters was one of only four woman out of 100 trainees who joined KPMG in 1970.

Masters qualified as a chartered accountant in 1973 after winning several prizes in both the ICAEW and CIOT exams* and did not follow her original plan as she decided to stay on at KPMG in general practice. In 1973 she authored Stamp Duties in the series of Tolley tax books. She was seconded from 1979-81 to HM Treasury to act as accounting and financial adviser. 

She was a partner at KPMG from 1983 to 2000 (only the second female in the firm to become a partner), specialising in public sector issues, becoming the head of KPMG's public sector group. In 1988 she was seconded for three years to head financial reforms in the NHS, as director of finance. In 1991 she returned to the firm and took up chairmanship of KPMG’s international government practice. In these roles she led large teams supporting the government's privatisation programmes.  During the 1990s she also became a non-executive director at the Court of the Bank of England and a commissioner of the public Works Loan Board. In 1996 she was awarded a DBE.

Baroness Noakes was a member of the London Society of Chartered Accountants from 1984-1988 and served on ICAEW council from 1987-2002. In 1999 she became the first female president of ICAEW in its 120 year history, promising to modernise it for the new millennium.

In 2000 she was made a life peer as Baroness Noakes (She had married Colin Noakes in 1985) of Goudhurst in the County of Kent. Offices held in the 2000s include Conservative front bench spokesman in the Lords for Health and for Work and Pensions and Shadow Minister in the Lords for the Treasury and for Work and Pensions. She is now a backbench Conservative peer. She has held non-executive directorships at a number of organisations and continues to do so.

* First place in the Order of Merit, the Stephens Prize, the Deloitte-Plender Prizes for the papers on Book-keeping and Accounts and the General paper in the Intermediate Examinations in September 1971; Second Place in the Order ofMmerit, the Charles M Strachan Prize and the Frederick Whinney Prize in the Final Examinations, May 1973.
Associateship examination prize of the Chartered Institute of Taxation (October 1971) and recommended for the the award of the special Butterworth prize. 

Further reading

• 'A personal view of women in the profession' The Accountant 2 March 1972, p288 (1 b&w photograph, as used above)
• 'In the fast lane to the top' Accountancy April 1993, p73 (1 colour photograph)
• 'Mastering a new role', Accountancy, July 1999, Vol. 124 Issue 1271, p.12, 1/3p. (1 colour photograph, as used above)
• ICAEW Past Presidents 1880-2005 - article on past presidents by accounting historian Peter Boys, written at the time of the 125th anniversary of ICAEW.
• Check our Library catalogue for books and articles on Baroness Noakes

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