Lady Barbara Judge

1946 - 2020

JUDGE, Lady Barbara Over a long career spanning the worlds of business and government, Lady Barbara Judge who died in London last 31 August aged 73 - carved out as a role as a trailblazer on both sides of the Atlantic. She was resident in Austin, Texas. Born and raised in New York, her election as a partner at law firm Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays & Handler in January 1978 saw her become one of the first female partners in the City's legal circuit. Two years later, President Carter appointed her to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), making her the youngest ever member of the SEC a record that stands to this day. While there, she played a key role in initiating reforms to open the US capital markets to overseas investors and to facilitate Americans investing in foreign securities. She also successfully negotiated with the Tokyo Stock Exchange to permit non-Japanese entities to buy seats. As a result of her efforts, Merrill Lynch, Solomon Brothers and Smith Barney were offered the opportunity to buy their seats. Her efforts were the forerunner of the formation of an International Division of the SEC, which she strongly encouraged, and which is now an important division within the Commission. A few years later, she became the first female executive director of a British merchant bank, Samuel Montagu & Co in Hong Kong, the platform for her move to the United Kingdom in the early nineties where she became a prominent figure in business and political circles, eventually immortalised in her own portrait in London's iconic National Portrait Gallery. After a series of government positions in the financial sector in London, she became Chairman of the UK Atomic Energy Authority - cementing her place as one of the leading authorities on nuclear energy throughout the world. She would go on to advise a series of international governments on nuclear energy policy, including the governments of Japan, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan. Barbara Judge was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Nuclear Energy Reform Committee of Japan's TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) following the Fukushima nuclear disaster, playing a critical role in helping the Japanese Government restore faith in nuclear power following the meltdown in 2011. She was also a member of the Visiting Committee for the Department of Nuclear Science at MIT. Her service to the nuclear and financial sectors was rewarded by the British Government in 2010 when she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by Her Majesty the Queen. The appointment at Buckingham Palace was a long way from the time when a young Barbara Judge walked into the office of the senior partner in her New York law firm hoping for a promotion, only to be told to consider her position instead. Despite regularly outperforming her male counterparts, the senior partner suggested that her face didn't fit. "With those short skirts and flowing blond hair you just don't look like a lawyer", the head of the firm told her. It was a defining moment in her career. She immediately gave up the short, eye-catching skirts in favour of the beautiful, iconic and immaculately groomed appearance that was to become instantly recognisable around the board tables and social gatherings of Britain and America, later catching the eye of many a magazine photographer. It also demonstrated the central and defining role her mother Marcia played in her life. Marcia Singer had long decried the mini-skirts that caused her daughter's employer such offence. With her mother's criticism also ringing in her ears, the mini-skirts were left behind in favour of the classic high collared white shirts and well-tailored dark suits that were to become the young lawyer's personal brand. As Associate Dean of Students at New York Institute of Technology in the 1960s, Marcia Singer pioneered courses designed to help women into the workforce. This had a profound influence on the young Barbara, who later said it never occurred to her to think she couldn't succeed in several industries and environments more regularly inhabited by powerful men. "My mother was my hero", she said. "She taught me that women should work not because they were poor or alone, but because they had a brain and they should use it. And because they should earn their own money because money is independence." Throughout her career, Lady Judge followed her mother's example by applying herself to the cause of championing the interests of women in education and work. She was the first woman on the Board of Overseers of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and was subsequently a member of its Europe, Middle East and Africa Executive Board. She was also the founding chairman of Cass University's Council for Global Women's Leadership, endowing two scholarships for women in education: one supporting the studies of black African women at London's School of Oriental and African Studies, where she had been Chairman of the Board, and the other at the Lauder Institute at the Wharton School of Business. "She was much admired and respected", according to the businessmen and philanthropist Leonard Lauder, a long-standing friend. "She never missed a meeting, and was always there for us and for the students who were inspired by her example and grateful for her advice. I can't say enough about her. She was a unique person in my life". Barbara Judge was quick to reject what she saw as the false dichotomy of the work-life balance, saying "I don't understand the phrase 'work-life balance', because it suggests that work isn't life". Unsurprising perhaps from the lady who once said she wanted to "die at her desk". It was to be another ambition she would achieve as this leading transatlantic businesswoman continued to work as a Chairman, Board Member and fighter for female empowerment right up until the end. Lady Barbara Judge (née Singer) was born in New York City on 28 December 1946 and died on 31 August 2020. She is survived by her son, daughter-in-law, granddaughter and by her mother Marcia, whom she continued to visit regularly at her home in New York.