Bibiana Aido BA (Hons) International Business Administration, 2000 Bibiana Aido is Spain’s youngest ever Minister appointed to Government at the age of 31. She served as Minister for Equality from 2008 and was awarded a Honorary Doctorate (Doctor of Civil Law) from Newcastle Business School at Northumbria University in 2011. | |
Dame Vera Baird DBE QC LLB (Hons) Law, 1974 Dame Vera Baird is currently the Police and Crime Commissioner at Northumbria Police. She also serves as an Honorary Doctor of Civil Law at Northumbria University. Dame Vera was previously a Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP) for Redcar from 2001 - 2010, UK Government Minister from 2006 - 2010 and the UK Government's Solicitor General for England and Wales from 2007 - 2010. In 2017 she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to women and equality. | |
Tunde Baiyewu BA (Hons) Accounting & Finance, 1992 Tunde Baiyewu is best known as the vocalist in the group Lighthouse Family, in 2004 he embarked on a solo career, releasing the album Tunde, and in 2013 released his second album, Diamond in a Rock. He has since made several appearances on UK television with him appearing on the BBC's one-off special, Strictly African Dancing in 2005 and in an ITV documentary called Faith in Music in 2006. | |
Amanda Berry OBE HND Business with Graphic Design, 1982 Amanda Berry joined the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) in October 1998 as Director of Development and Events and became its Chief Executive in December 2000. She is widely acknowledged to have transformed the fortunes of the Academy in 2001 by bringing the date of its annual Film Awards ceremony ahead of the American Academy’s Oscars - a move that boosted BAFTA’s international profile. She was appointed Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to the Film Industry in 2009. | |
Tim Brown BA (Hons) Design for Industry, 1985 Tim Brown is Chief Executive of IDEO USA, one of the world’s leading design consultancies. Tim has earned numerous design awards and has exhibited work at the Axis Gallery in Tokyo, the Design Museum in London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He also advises senior executives and boards of global Fortune 100 companies and writes for the Harvard Business Review. | |
Steve Cram CBE BA Sports Studies, 1983 Steve Cram is a British retired track and field athlete who dominated the middle distance runners during the 1980s. Nicknamed "The Jarrow Arrow", Cram set world records in the 1500 metres, 2000 metres and the mile during a 19-day period in 1985. He was the first man to run 1500 metres under 3 minutes and 30 seconds and won the 1500 metres gold medal at the 1983 World Championships and the 1500 metres silver medal at the 1984 Olympic Games. In 2015 he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his recent work as chairman of the English Institute of Sport. | |
Lady Edwina Grosvenor BSc (Hons) Criminology & Sociology, 2004 Lady Grosvenor is a Philanthropist, Prison Reformer and Founder and Trustee of charities ‘The Clink’ and ‘One Small Thing’. She currently sits on the Women’s Advisory Board for Female Offenders and is a trustee of the Centre for Mental Health, establishing trauma informed mental health workshops in women’s prisons. In 2009 Lady Grosvenor founded The Clink, a British charity that identifies the training and support needed for prisoners to find jobs following release. She also is the founder of One Small Thing, a charity that seeks to understand the trauma within the prison system and, in 2017, collaborated with the Rumi Foundation to research women’s prisons around the country. | |
Peter Horbury BA (Hons) Design for Industry, 1972 Peter Horbury is car designer and Vice President of Design at Volvo. He is widely known for his design work for Volvo and has worked in a variety of roles in the automotive industry, including as Executive Design Director of Americas for Ford between 2004 and 2009. He was named UK magazine Autocar’s Designer of the Year in 1998 and during his career has been actively involved in the design of more than fifty vehicles. | |
Sir Jonathan Ive KBE BA (Hons) Design for Industry, 1985 Sir Jonathan Ive is an English designer and the Former Senior Vice President of Design at Apple who oversaw the Apple Industrial Design Group and provided leadership and direction for the Human Interface software teams. He is credited as being the designer of the MacBook Pro, iMac, MacBook Air, Mac mini, iPod, iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad, iPad Mini, Apple Watch and iOS 7. In 2006 he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to the design industry and in 2012 this was elevated to Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) for services to design and enterprise. | |
Dr Tshering Lama PhD Philosophy, 2012 Dr Tshering Lama is Young Global Leader at the world Economic Forum. He has previously worked as the Country Director of Childreach International in Nepal, with a particular focus on remote and rural communities. In 2006 whilst studying at Northumbria he also won the British Council's International Student of the Year Award, leading to the establishment of a scholarship scheme in his name for Nepalese students at Northumbria University. | |
Rob Law MBE BA (Hons) Design for Industry, 2000 Rob Law is founder and director of Magmatic, the company best known for creating the innovative Trunki suitcase which has gone on to sell in more than 1,564 stores in 62 countries. Rob came to public attention in 2006 following an appearance on BBC2's Dragons' Den programme in which he introduced the innovatively designed suitcase. In 2011 he was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for his services to business. | |
Stephen Miller MBE BSc (Hons) Business Information Systems, 2002 Stephen Miller is a professional paralympic athlete, competing primarily in field athletics and the Club Throw. He has represented Great Britain for over 15 years having competed in 5 Paralympic Games, 5 World Championships and 4 European Championships and won 26 international medals. Stephen is a World Record Holder in the Club Throw and is currently in training for the 2016 Rio Paralympics. | |
Victoria Pendleton CBE BSc Sport & Exercise Science, 2002 Victoria Gardner, better known as Victoria Pendleton, is one of Britain’s most successful female track cyclists and Olympic gold medallists. She represented Great Britain and England in several international competitions, winning nine world titles including a record six in the individual sprint competition between 2005 and 2012. She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2009 and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2013 for services to cycling. | |
James Rowan MSc Business Administration (Logistics & Supply Chain Management), 2014 James was appointed CEO at Dyson in 2017, he joined Dyson as Chief Operating Officer and board member in 2012. As COO, Jim managed all aspects of the core RDD and operational functions, ranging from research, supply chain and logistics to planning and manufacturing. In this time, James used his 20 years of experience from managing global operations in Research In Motion (BlackBerry) and Flextronics to lay the foundation for Dyson to future-proof itself. | |
Gordon Sumner CBE (Sting) HCES Teaching Studies, 1973 Composer, singer-songwriter, actor, author, and activist Sting was born in Newcastle, England before moving to London in 1977 to form The Police with Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers. The band released five studio albums, earned six GRAMMY Awards and two Brits, and was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003. In 2003, he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for his myriad of contributions to music. Sting has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music by Northumbria in 1992. | |
Louise Trotter BA (Hons) Fashion, 1991 Sunderland-born Louise has held leadership roles at the likes of Gap, Tommy Hilfiger, Jigsaw, Calvin Klein and Joseph, and is more recently working as Creative Director at Lacoste. | |
Stewart Wingate BEng (Hons) Electrical & Electronic Engineering, 1994 Stewart became the Chief Executive Officer at Gatwick Airport in December 2009. He began his career at Black and Decker, where he worked for 15 years as an Electrical Engineer, before transferring to airport management. Before joining Gatwick, he was the CEO of Budapest Airport and the Managing Director of London Stansted Airport. | |