Our honorary graduates

Stefan is recognised as one of the UK’s leading employment lawyers; his pioneering equal pay litigation has changed the legal landscape.

Stefan, a working- class boy on free school meals, graduated with a LLB Law degree from Southampton in 1982. After training in Bournemouth, he joined trade union solicitors Thompsons in Newcastle, took an LLM in employment law, pioneered claims for redundancy consultation, transfer of undertakings and multi-applicant claims, especially equal pay.

From 2003 to 2013 his own firm, Stefan Cross Solicitors, conducted more than 30,000 successful equal pay claims against more than 100 local authorities in England and Wales, directly and indirectly, recovering more than £2bn for low paid women and men.

Stefan set up Action 4 Equality Scotland Ltd in 2005 to pursue claims in Scotland. He has since been involved in more than 100,000 claims recovering more than £1.2bn leading to the Glasgow Women’s Equal Pay Strike in 2018.

In 2013, he was appointed as an Honorary Queen’s Counsel (QC) in recognition of his contribution to pay equality, one of only a small number of solicitors to be awarded this venerable distinction.

Stefan has maintained a close relationship with the University. In 2018, he launched The Stefan Cross Centre for Women, Equality and Law on Highfield Campus, designed to raise awareness of discrimination against women and girls, and investigate the causes of this discrimination.

CEO, Royal Academy of Engineering
CEO, Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering Foundation

Hayaatun has extensive leadership experience in UK and international engineering, innovation, and diversity and inclusion activities. She chairs the UK government’s Business Innovation Forum and the St. Andrews Prize for the Environment, and recently co-chaired with Sir Lewis Hamilton his Commission on improving Black representation in UK motorsport. She is a trustee of EngineeringUK and the Foundation for Science & Technology; a member of the UK government’s Levelling Up Advisory Council; a director of UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK; and an advisor to accelerateHER and the Lloyd’s Register Foundation. She has been named as one of the ‘Inspiring 50 Women in Tech’ and one of the most influential women in engineering.

She has a Masters in Biochemistry (MBiochem) from Oxford and a PhD from Cancer Research UK/UCL. She is a Fellow of the IET and Honorary Professor at UCL and in 2021 received honorary degrees from UCL and Imperial College and won a Science Suffrage Award. She was made a CBE for services to International Engineering in 2019.

Prior to her current roles, she was Deputy CEO at the Academy and served as Committee Specialist and later Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Science & Technology Committee.

DL FRSE FBA FAcSS

Professor Sir Ian Diamond has been, since August 2018, the National Statistician and Permanent Secretary of the Office for National Statistics. Prior to this role he was, from 2003-2010, Chief Executive of the Economic and Statistics Research Council, and from 2010 -2018, Principal and Vice Chancellor of the University of Aberdeen. These roles followed almost 23 years at the University of Southampton where he was, variously, Lecturer, Professor, Head of Social Statistics, Dean of Social Sciences and Deputy Vice Chancellor.

Ian is a passionate teacher and researcher who has worked on the analysis of large and complex data sets most notably in the area of population; and on census design and analysis. His research has crossed many disciplinary boundaries and he has worked with a number of government departments both in the UK and internationally.

He is currently chairing the Independent Commission for the Future of College Education and Plan International UK. He has also Chaired British Universities and Colleges Sport, Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales and Edinburgh College of Further Education; and has been or is a board member of WWF UK, UK Research and Innovation, UCAS, Universities UK, Lancaster University and the Iona Cathedral Trust.

Admiral Sir Tony Radakin is the professional head of the United Kingdom’s Armed Forces and principal military adviser to the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Defence.

He previously served as First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff from June 2019 until early November 2021, during which time he oversaw a full-scale transformation of the Royal Navy, instigated a renewed naval presence around the globe and secured an expanded shipbuilding programme.

Commissioned in 1990, he has served in numerous command and staff appointments, both ashore and afloat, and in command of UK and international forces. Operational tours have included the Iran/Iraq Tanker War, security duties in the Falklands, NATO operations in the Adriatic, countering smuggling in Hong Kong and the Caribbean, and three tours in Iraq – each in command.

A qualified barrister with an MA in International Relations and Defence Studies, he is a graduate of the Higher Command and Staff Course and the London Business School’s Senior Executive Programme, and various international courses, principally in America.

He lives in Hampshire with his wife and four sons, born between 1998 and 2005. He is president of the UK Armed Forces Tennis and Royal Navy Squash Associations, and Vice Admiral of the Royal Navy Sailing Association.