Honorary graduates 2010-11

Baroness Young of Old Scone (LLD)

Thursday 15 July 2010, 11:30am

Barbara Young’s early career was spent in public relations and in health services management. She was Chairman then President of the Institute of Health Services Management from 1986–1988, and a King’s Fund International Fellow in 1985–1986 and 1990–1991.

After 20 years in health care, she switched to an environmental career and has held posts as Chief Executive of the Environment Agency and Chairman of English Nature. From 1990–1998, she held the post of Chief Executive of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). She is active in the conservation and environment voluntary sector as President of the British Trust for Ornithology and of the Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Peterborough Wildlife Trusts, and as Vice-President of RSPB, Birdlife International, Plantlife and Flora and Fauna International. She sits on the government’s Climate Change Adaptation Committee. She is also Chancellor of Cranfield University.

She has served as Vice-Chairman of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), as a Board member of AWG plc, the water and infrastructure company, and as Chairman of the Care Quality Commission, the regulator for quality in health and social care.

Barbara Young is a Life Peer in the House of Lords as Baroness Young of Old Scone, a Patron of the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management. She is also an Honorary Member of the RICS, Honorary Fellow of the Geologists Association and an Honorary Fellow of the Linnean Society. She holds a number of Honorary Degrees and is an Honorary Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, Eminent Fellow of IAgrE, CIWEM Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv) and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Waste Management (CIWM).