NatWest Group Plc Chief Executive Officer Alison Rose was made a dame in the UK’s New Year’s Honors List, which also makes awards to Queen rock star Brian May, and Mary Quant, the 1960s fashion icon credited with designing the miniskirt.
(Bloomberg) — NatWest Group Plc Chief Executive Officer Alison Rose was made a dame in the UK’s New Year’s Honors List, which also makes awards to Queen rock star Brian May, and Mary Quant, the 1960s fashion icon credited with designing the miniskirt.
Rose, 53, was the first woman to lead a major UK lender and has run the Edinburgh-based bank since 2019, while championing female entrepreneurship. May — Queen’s lead guitarist and also an astrophysicist who’s heavily involved in charity work — receives a knighthood, allowing him to use the title “Sir.”
Quant, who became a dame in 2015, has been made a Companion of Honour, a 105-year-old award limited to 65 members at any one time. Recognition was also given to stars of the England Women’s soccer team which won this year’s European Championships, including Leah Williamson, Lucy Bronze and Beth Mead.
The full honors list published late Friday covers the whole spectrum of British society, recognizing politicians, civil servants, academics, charity workers and even a glassblower. Some 1,107 people received an award, with other famous names on the list including the artist Grayson Perry, who receives a knighthood, Line of Duty actor Stephen Graham and Liverpool soccer player Andrew Robertson.
Business figures honored include Diageo Plc CEO Ivan Menezes, who was knighted, and Rolls Royce Holdings Plc and Croda International Plc chairwoman Anita Frew, who is made a Dame. Former abrdn plc CEO Keith Skeoch, who led a review of the UK’s ring-fencing regime, also received a knighthood, while City veteran Catherine McGuinness was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, or CBE.
Politicians
Partha Dasgupta, a professor at the University of Cambridge who wrote an influential review for the Treasury into the economics of biodiversity, was made a Knight Grand Cross, while University of Oxford economist Linda Yueh, formerly economics editor at Bloomberg News, received a CBE. Tom Scholar, the former head of the Treasury who was sacked by former Prime Minister Liz Truss at the start of her brief tenure this year, was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Bath, the highest award for civil servants.
In politics, former cabinet minister Alok Sharma received a knighthood for leading Britain’s hosting of the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow last year. Former cabinet secretary Mark Sedwill and long-standing MPs Chris Bryant and Julian Lewis were also knighted. And after a year in which Russia invaded Ukraine, there were damehoods for Melinda Simmons and Deborah Bronnert, the UK’s ambassadors to Kyiv and Moscow respectively.
The honors, awarded twice yearly, are bestowed in the name of the monarch and recommended by a panel that considers suggestions from government departments and political parties as well as from members of the public. They are the first honors issued by King Charles III, following the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth II in September.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.
