By sad coincidence another of our favourite clients, Dame Sheila McKechnie, Director of the Consumers Association, died as the New Year dawned. Jenny Rogers pays a heartfelt tribute.

One of the most privileged aspects of doing the work we do is that we get to work with some truly outstanding human beings. Sheila was one of those.

She was a natural and fearless leader. Everything she did was based on the core values which she unashamedly wore on her sleeve at all times: justice, equality, the rights of the weaker against the stronger and a commitment not just to think that these things were legitimate but to act on those beliefs.

At Shelter, when she became Director of a then soggy and directionless organisation, she tartly remarked that the organisation was better at providing a home for the campaign-less than it was at providing a campaign for the homeless. At Shelter the charity grew from a £1m turnover to £10m in her nine years there.

It was the same at the Consumer’s Association, where she was Director from 1995 until her death at the early age of 55.

She halted the sharp decline in subscriptions and launched a series of fierce and successful campaigns. For instance, if you were mounting a campaign against the obvious unfairness of the car manufacturers’ cartel, then of course you would take a stand at the Motor Show with your own Rip Off Britain logo, fulfilling her threat that if you couldn’t do something through persuasion, then there was always embarrassment. She was fond of quoting her much-loved mother: "Sheila can start a row in an empty house"’.

People who saw her as abrasive and indiscreet, and yes, she could be, couldn’t miss her down-to-earth humour. She once showed me an appraisal she had written on a male colleague. It began, "You needn’t think that I will be taken in by charm and flirting. We old feminists have seen it all before…"

As a client she was a dream. Right till the end of her life, even in her last months when she knew that her cancer was advancing, Sheila was open to challenge and development and expected the same of every single person at CA. Indeed she expected the same of the whole organisation, introducing a bold reorganisation and refocusing CA on a refreshed version of its core mission.

I will miss the warmth of her friendship, her courage, her willingness to face up to uncomfortable truths as well as her talent for celebrating success – and of course that deep, gravelly laugh.