Preceded by Ed Richards Nationality British Profession Economist | Full Name Sharon White Spouse(s) Robert Chote Name Sharon White | |
Alma mater University of Cambridge; University College London | ||
Sharon Michele White (born 21 April 1967) is a British civil servant. She had a variety of roles in the British civil service, and was Second Permanent Secretary at HM Treasury from 2013 to 2015. She has been the chief executive of the British media regulator Ofcom since March 2015. She was the first black person, and the second woman, to become a Permanent Secretary at the Treasury.
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Early life
White was born in east London and brought up in Leyton where she attended a comprehensive school. Her parents emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in the 1950s, when her father was aged 15 and her mother 11. White attended Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, from where she received a BA degree in economics. She later earned an MSc in economics from University College London.
Career
White worked for a church in Birmingham before joining the British civil service in 1989. She worked first at the Treasury and later for the British embassy in Washington which was also where she met her husband Robert Chote. She also worked at the 10 Downing Street policy unit during the Blair government, at the World Bank, and as a director general at the Department for International Development in 2003-9 and then at the Ministry of Justice in 2009-11, and also at the Department for Work and Pensions.
At the Treasury, she supervised a review of the financial management of government and the Treasury's management response to the international financial crisis of 2007-08. She was Director General for Public Spending at the Treasury from 2012–13, and then replaced Tom Scholar as Second Permanent Secretary in 2013. She was the first black person to become a Permanent Secretary at the Treasury, and the second woman after Dame Anne Mueller in the 1980s.
In November 2014, The Voice named White the 7th most powerful black person in Britain.
In December 2014, it was announced that White would be the new chief executive of Ofcom from March 2015, replacing Ed Richards as the previous chief executive and Steve Unger as the interim chief executive.
Other appointments
White is a visiting fellow of Nuffield College, University of Oxford.
Family
White married the economist Robert Chote at the British Embassy in Washington, DC in 1997, when White was working at the British embassy and Chote was working for the International Monetary Fund. Chote has been the chairman of the Office of Budget Responsibility since 2010. The media have dubbed them "Mr and Mrs Treasury". They have two children.