BIG SHOT OF THE WEEK: Affable Ofcom boss Sharon White
Brains in abundance: Ofcom boss Sharon White
A successful civil servant must be bestowed not just with brains but an ability to glide effortlessly from one master to another, with an adeptness for winning friends on each side of the political spectrum.
Sharon White possesses such rare gifts in abundance. Her impressive career has taken her right across Whitehall, into Downing Street, over the pond to the Washington embassy, even to the World Bank.
But while shadowy Sir Humphrys may squirm and obfuscate, tireless Sharon has a hard-earned reputation for briskness and efficiency.
Former Justice Minister Kenneth Clarke describes her as one of the brightest people he has ever worked with. Even Labour snoot Margaret Hodge, not someone who exactly oozes the milk of human kindness, is a fan.
White is chief executive of Ofcom, the regulatory body in charge of Britain's communications industries.
The £275,000-a-year post is one of the most powerful in British media, putting White in charge of a range of weighty issues from Britain's broadband infrastructure to regulating the BBC.
As such, the role requires dogged independence. Unlike her predecessors Stephen Carter and Ed Richards, both such blatant New Labour creatures, it helps that Sharon's politics are largely impenetrable.
In fact, her whole life outside of work remains something of a closed book.
The daughter of Jamaican immigrants, she is married to Robert Chote, the Office of Budget Responsibility chief with whom she has two young children, though aspects of their home life and intertwining careers remain undiscussed. As for recreations, her guarded Who's Who entry reads simply: 'Childcare'.
Born in London's East End, White grew up in Leyton where her father Curtis worked for British Rail, and her mother, Blossom, was a machinist.
After attending the local all-girls comprehensive, she won a place at Cambridge to study economics where contemporaries included former health secretary Andy Burnham. Peers recall Sharon as a hard-working, 'emotionally mature' person with little time for parties or student high jinks.
A regular church goer, she took a year out to work in a deprived area of Birmingham after which she joined the civil service in 1989, taking a job at the Department of Education.
She was soon fast-tracked through the ranks to the male-dominated Treasury. Here she met Chote, then an up-and-coming journalist for the FT. Wags dubbed them 'Mr and Mrs Treasury'.
She went to work in the British embassy in Washington after that, where she and Chote married in a ceremony at the ambassador's residence. Not one for convention, guests say Sharon wore a black, strapless Giorgio Armani dress, sans veil.
Thanks to Tony Blair, the couple were spared a transatlantic marriage when he recruited Sharon to the Downing Street policy unit. Stints at the World Bank and the Department for International Development followed before she joined the Ministry of Justice in 2009.
By the time she was made second permanent secretary to the Treasury in 2013, there was a young family to care for. Colleagues would sometimes pop over to White's home in London's Tufnell Park and sit cross-legged on the floor thrashing out details of the Government's austerity programme.
In 2015, culture secretary Sajid Javid recommended her for the Ofcom job. It's been an eventful couple of years. There's been the Sky takeover proposal to deal with, the never-ending saga over BT's Openreach division and more recently, the 5G sell-off, which looks set to monopolise her time over the coming months.
Important stuff you might think, though her former boss Ken Clarke thinks she needs to return forthwith to the more serious business of government. Permanent secretary to the Treasury, perhaps. Some go as far to suggest White as a future head of the civil service when serpentine Sir Jeremy Heywood slithers off, stage left.
She took a directorship this week with Barratt Developments, a rare foray into the private sector. This will do her no harm in terms of experience, or financially for that matter, but one suspects her future lies firmly in the public arena.
This is perhaps no better illustrated than her first day at Ofcom when White gathered her 790 staff into the canteen and reminded them of their first duty: To serve the citizen. Humble words, you might say, she chooses to live by.