My aunt, Kathleen Sollis, who has died aged 90, managed to break through the glass ceiling in the civil service while living her entire life in Hopwas, near Tamworth, Staffordshire, the village where she was born. Kathleen was the youngest of four children of Frances (nee Luxton) and Frank, an insurance agent. When her three brothers went off to serve in the second world war, Kathleen stayed at home to support their parents. She left Tamworth senior girls’ school at the age of 15 and entered the Ministry of Labour and National Service as a temporary clerk in the town. This proved an ideal fit: she saw opportunities to help people and to advance professionally. She took night courses and, in 1948, passed her civil service exams. Through diligence and hard work, combined with her positive, disarming nature, she rose from her clerical position to become an executive – one of few women to do so outside London. This was no mean accomplishment and she was something of a workplace pioneer. By the mid-1960s she was manager of the Tamworth employment exchange. This was a time of social and economic planning; Tamworth was an overspill town with light engineering designated to replace coal mining and brick making. As a key figure making this experiment work Kathleen became a local celebrity, with the weekly newspaper regularly publishing photographs of her hosting the constituency MP and other dignitaries. Kathleen quietly broke conventions. She learned to drive in her 20s and owned a powder-blue soft-top Triumph Herald, which she loved to drive around the West Midlands for her work. On retirement from managing Tamworth Jobcentre in 1989, she volunteered for Oxfam and at St Giles hospice in Whittington. She also loved to sing, in choral competitions and as a soloist. A committed Methodist, she held office in the Hopwas Methodist chapel for 60 years. A last act as its treasurer was to organise a fundraiser for emergency relief for the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Kathleen invested in the village’s social fabric – the chapel, the Women’s Institute and the gardening club, and she was a member of the Friends of Hopwas Wood, campaigning to protect the ancient woodland, which is mentioned in the Domesday Book. She was respected by the community for her kindness, empathy, integrity and honesty. She is survived by her niece Diane and three nephews Gordon, Michael and me.