Honorary Graduates 2021

Professor John Clarke

John Clarke grew up in neighbouring Brackley, where has was educated at Magdalen College School. He was awarded a scholarship at Wadham College, Oxford, and achieved First Class Honours in Modern History in 1967. Later the same year he was elected to a Prize Fellowship at All Souls College. While at All Souls he completed his doctoral thesis and published his first book George III. In 1974 he was recruited by Max Beloff to become Dean of Admissions at the University College at Buckingham and was thus one of the first members of staff. He remained at Buckingham until he retired in 2016. Over the years he held a variety of posts including Chairman of the HPE degree programme, Dean of Humanities, Secretary to Council, Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor and University Orator. He taught undergraduate and postgraduate students throughout. His books include The Price of Progress, British Diplomacy and Foreign Policy, The Book of Buckingham, The Book of Brackley, Yesterday’s Brackley and Victorian Brackley. He contributed chapters to the history of All Souls and the IEA publication Buckingham at 25.

Lord Robert Lingfield

From 1989 -1997 Lord Lingfield was appointed by the Prime Minister to lead the drive for state school· autonomy. He was later asked by The Rt Hon David Cameron to chair the Commission on Special Education Needs; he then undertook a government review of Professionalism in Further Education in 2012; this produced the Lingfield Report. He was then appointed by the government to be the Founder Chairman of the Chartered Institution for Further Education. He has been the author of many policy papers on education.

Additionally, he has been Director General of St John Ambulance, Chairman of Goldsmiths College, University of London, and Pro-Chancellor of Brunel University. He founded twenty-five years ago (and currently chairs) The English Schools’ Orchestra and also the League of Mercy, a charity that encourages voluntary work in many healthcare areas. He is also the Chairman of ARNI, a stroke charity and of CVQO (the Cadet Vocational Qualification Organisation). Knighted in 1993 for services to education, his appointment as Knight Principal of the Imperial Society of Knights Bachelor was approved by HM The Queen in 2006. He became Knight President in 2012. He is also a Knight of The Order of St John and has a number of foreign awards. He was created a Peer of the United Kingdom for life in 2010.

Sir Geoffrey Nice

Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, educated at St Dunstan’s College Catford and Keble College Oxford (where he read PPE not law), practised since 1971 as a barrister in England and Wales until 1998 when he started to work for the UN at its International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. Between 2001 and 2006 he led the prosecution of ex-President of Serbia, Slobodan Milošević. He was knighted for his contribution to international criminal law. Since 2006 he has practised in international courts, been the Bar’s senior regulator as Vice-Chair of the Bar Standards Board and Gresham Professor of Law.

His extensive pro bono work has included being Chair of the China Tribunal into forced organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience in the People’s Republic of China and (current) Chair of the Uyghur Tribunal into alleged Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity of Uyghurs and other Turkic minority groups in the People’s Republic of China. He stood twice for the Liberal Democrats’ cause in the 1980s, is married with three grown-up daughters and grandchildren.

Naomi Alderman

Naomi Alderman is a novelist, television writer, games designer and broadcaster. Her novel The Power was the winner of the 2017 Baileys’ Women’s Prize for Fiction. It was named a book of the year by the New York Times, the Washington Post and Barack Obama. It has been translated into more than 30 languages.

Naomi has won numerous awards including being named Sunday Times’ Young Writer of the Year, one of Waterstones’ Writers for the Future and one of Granta’s Best British Novelists in their once-a-decade list. A proud fan of science fiction, Naomi has published Doctor Who fiction and is co-creator of the fitness game and audio adventure Zombies, Run! It has been downloaded millions of times and continues to be a market-leader. Naomi presents Science Stories on BBC Radio 4, she is Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She is currently adapting The Power into a TV series for Amazon.

Carl Bistany

Carl Bistany is a board member and the president of SABIS®, an education business that started in 1886 and has grown to become a multi-national education network that manages Pre-K/K-12 schools and employs over 9,000 professionals. Today, the SABIS® Network educates over 70,000 students in public and private schools and has an active presence in in 20 countries on five continents.

Since joining SABIS® in 1992, Carl has leveraged his passion for the company’s vision to change the world through education and his compelling approach to leadership to transition the fourth generation family-owned business into a globally-recognized, professionally-managed enterprise at the forefront of education management. The company’s involvement, particularly in the public sector, has contributed to changing the lives of thousands of underprivileged students, who, through SABIS®, value the importance of giving back to their communities and are equipped with the knowledge and skills to turn their dreams into reality.

Jane Ogden

After graduating from Sussex University in 1987 Jane Ogden completed her PhD at the Institute of Psychiatry in London. She then lectured at Middlesex University and Guys Hospital before coming to Surrey University in 2005 as a Professor in Health Psychology.

Her research focuses on eating behaviour and obesity, communication and women’s health and over her career she has taught GPs, nutrition, dietician, medical, vet and psychology students to think more psychologically about health. She has also supervised 35 PhD students and over 300 MSc and BSc students.

Jane has also published over 200 research papers and 8 books, including 4 books on eating behaviour and a textbook in Health Psychology which is now in its 6th edition and has been translated in many languages. Her most recent book is on critical thinking which she hopes will help people to work out what to believe. She is also passionate about getting out of the ivory tower and is a regular contributor to TV, radio, magazines and newspapers.

Vivek Singh

With a global reputation as one of the masters of innovative Indian fine dining, Vivek Singh is Executive Chef & CEO of The Cinnamon Collection, a group of five restaurants located in London and Oxford. Vivek’s first restaurant, The Cinnamon Club, opened in 2001 and is internationally credited as one of the benchmarks for fine dining Indian restaurants. It was here that Vivek liberated Indian food from its traditional shackles and crafted a brilliant marriage between Indian flavours and western fine dining.

Vivek is also the author of six cookbooks, and a regular face on television (including the BBC’s Saturday Kitchen and Masterchef), and live cookery events across the country.

Passionate about mentoring, Vivek runs apprenticeships to help nurture young talent from entry level through to senior roles, with every Head Chef within the business a home-grown talent. Vivek is also a dedicated supporter of a number of charities including Action Against Hunger, Find Your Feet and Wooden Spoon

Anand Verma

Anand is the Founder and CEO of Brilliant Basics, an award winning global Design and Innovation company based in London with studios in Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels, Stockholm and Dubai.

Recently Infosys, a global leader in technology and consulting acquired Brilliant Basics to accelerate its design and innovation capabilities across the globe. Anand also leads Infosys’ digital capabilities in EMEA and is a part of the Infosys leadership team. He successful career on consistently delivering innovative products and services for world’s largest brands.

Prior to starting Brilliant Basics, Anand was the youngest President and CEO at Interpublic Group (IPG) leading IPG Mediabrands Ventures. And previous to that he was leading Sapient in a variety of leadership roles. Anand also advises various startups founders and enjoys mentoring budding entrepreneurs and supports internship and apprenticeship schemes.

Anand is married to Veena Verma (University of Buckingham alumni BSc Business Studies ‘1999 and MBA ‘2000) and lives in London with their two kids Ruhan (13) and Anoushka (9).