Prominent Alumni
Nick Bridge
Nick Bridge is the Special Representative for Climate Change (appointed by the Foreign Secretary in May 2017).
He graduated from Nottingham in 1993 with a BA in Economics. Nick is our first economics alumni to move through the diplomatic ranks. Between 2011 and 2016, he was the Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). He also served as Chief Economist at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Head of Global Economy Department. He has served for over a decade in diplomatic postings to China, Japan and the United States.
Nick previously worked in the Treasury, where he co-led a $4 billion fund to immunize half a billion people in the developing world, and was an economist in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
Nick gave our 2013 University of Nottingham Globalisation Lecture on ‘Economic Diplomacy in the 21st Century’ and contributed to the Nottingham Economic review. He explained that economics had become a thread running through his career:
‘I wasn't a very good student despite working hard. But my studies gave me a framework for thinking about the big political, economic, environmental and social issues. I'll always be grateful to David Greenaway, Wyn Morgan, Mike Bleaney and others for inspiring me and setting me on my way. As a comprehensive school lad from a remote Yorkshire town I certainly had no idea these incredible work and travel opportunities were out there and feel incredibly lucky. And Nottingham - the Broadway, Selectadisc, Johnson Arms, Taste of India, and so much more - will always be in my heart!’
Manuel Cabral
We are delighted that our former PhD student, Manuel Cabral, has been appointed Economics Minister in the new Government in Portugal.
Manuel completed his PhD in Economics at Nottingham in 2004, on Topic Determinants of Horizontal and Vertical Intra-Industry Trade in European Trade, supervised by Professors Rod Falvey and Chris Milner.
Since 2004, he has been Professor of Economics at Minho University until his appointment this year as Economics Minister.
Sir Clive Granger
If you have visited the university, you'll know that the School of Economics is located in the Sir Clive Granger Building and you may have wondered, who was he and why does the building bear his name?
Sir Clive Granger received the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 2003 in recognition of his pioneering contribution to the econometric analysis of time series data. As with most Nobel laureates, Clive Granger is not a household name, but to every student and scholar of econometrics, he is just that.
Professor Granger's discoveries - some of the most famous of which were conceived in his office on B floor in the School of Economics - fundamentally changed the way economists analyse financial and macroeconomic data - not just in Nottingham, but throughout the world.
Sir Clive Granger was a Nottingham academic but also, one of our most celebrated former students. It began in 1952, when Clive enrolled as one of the first cohort of the new degree in Economics and Mathematics; the first in his family to go to University. Upon graduation, his ascension through the ranks was meteoric, winning his first academic appointment at just 21 and becoming a Professor of Econometrics shortly after, a position he held until moving to University of California in 1974.
In all, Clive spent 22 years at the University, returning regularly from the States for research collaboration and conferences before his death at the age of 74 in 2009. To anyone that knew Clive, he was not just a powerhouse of ideas and intellect, he was modest, amusing and charming too. With his characteristically wry humour Professor Granger had once written: "A teacher told my mother that 'I would never become successful', which illustrates the difficulty of long-run forecasting on inadequate data." Academics at the school's Granger Centre of Times Series Econometrics continue to undertake path-breaking research in a field in which Clive Granger re-wrote the textbooks.
Sir Peter Kendall
Sir Peter Kendall farms in Eyeworth, East Bedfordshire, in partnership with his brother Richard.
620 hectares of combinable crops are grown on the home farm and contracting and rental agreements are also operated with four local farmers. The farm has evolved over the last 15 years from a very traditional mixed farm to a totally arable unit.
Sir Peter studied a degree in Agricultural Economics in the School of Economics at the University of Nottingham between 1979 and 1982, before returning to the family business in 1984.
Previously Chairman of NFU Cereals and NFU Deputy President, Sir Peter was elected as NFU President in 2006 and served for four terms, stepping down on 26 February 2014. Sir Peter was appointed by the Government as AHDB Chair for a three-year term from 1 April 2014. Peter sits on a range of bodies in the UK and Europe.
His achievements were recognised in the 2015 New Year's Honours when he became a Knight Bachelor for services to the agricultural industry in England and Wales.
Vanessa MacDougall
Vanessa MacDougall is Director for Economics and Deputy Chief Economic Adviser at HM Treasury.
Vanessa graduated from Nottingham in 1995 with a BA in Economics and Econometrics. She then completed an MSc in Economics at Warwick, before joining the Government Economics Service (GES).
As Director for Economics, Vanessa advises the Chancellor on a range of economic issues, including developments in the UK economy, and the evidence base for macroeconomic and microeconomic policy development to support UK growth and productivity. Vanessa has spent her career at the Treasury, and has extensive experience on EU and international issues, including as the UK Director to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the European Investment Bank (EIB), and having led for the Treasury on successive UK Presidencies of the G7, G8 and G20 (including in response to the global financial crisis).
Vanessa provides broader leadership across the Treasury’s wider analytical community, supporting their career, talent and professional development; and promotes diversity in the Government Economic Service (GES) as a whole, including as a senior sponsor for a new initiative to improve gender balance at all levels of the GES.
Jeff Randall
Not all our former students make the news. But Jeff Randall is one who definitely does.
In 2001, he became the BBC's first Business Editor, appearing regularly on all the corporation's flagship news programmes, such as the Ten O'Clock News, the Today Programme and BBC News 24. He's been the Daily Telegraph's Editor-at-large since 2005 and presents 'Jeff Randall Live' four nights a week on Sky News.
He claims to get a buzz from 'breaking' a story and in doing so communicates an important message to millions, that economics is both relevant and exciting.
Despite all the accolades and honours he has received over the years, Jeff still likes to reflect on a time when essay deadlines and tutorial presentations were the unwitting preparation for an illustrious career in the media. "The University completely and wildly surpassed my expectations. I thought the campus was beautiful. I got the idea of University straight away. I knew I was going to love it."
Having cut his journalistic teeth on the University Student Newspaper, Jeff says "I have real affection for Nottingham because it changed my life. I was a working class boy from East London who had the dangerous combination of being completely unworldly but believing he was very worldly. Nottingham made me realise my shortcomings, but it also gave me time to think about what I wanted to do; it was the place where I brought out what I wanted to do and it gave me the skills to achieve the goals that I'd set myself."
Sir Andrew Witty
Sir Andrew Witty was officially installed as the 7th Chancellor of the University of Nottingham at a ceremony on 12 March 2013.
Sir Andrew said of his installation: "I never expected to become Chancellor of the University. I was shocked and honoured two years ago to be given an honorary degree, which was far in excess of anything that I thought would happen to me."
Characteristic modesty from Sir Andrew, who is Chief Executive Officer of GlaxoSmithKline, one of the world's most successful pharmaceutical companies with a global turnover in excess of £26bn. Sir Andrew graduated from The University in 1985 with a BA in Economics. As his Record Card with its stapled photograph that's still held in the school bears out, Sir Andrew was not only a talented scholar, but was someone who made the most of university life. Key roles in the Students' Union, President of Wortley Hall and to cap it all, University Radio Nottingham DJ, indicated he was bound for great things.
Upon graduation, Sir Andrew joined Glaxo, holding a variety of roles in the UK, South Africa, the USA and Singapore before being appointed President of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Europe in 2003. He became CEO of GSK in 2008 and was knighted for services to the economy and to the UK pharmaceutical industry in the 2012 New Year Honours.
He claims that his student life at University during the politically charged 1980s helped fashion his career, and his life. Talking about his installation as Chancellor of the University of Nottingham, Sir Andrew said that it is "a special way of giving something back to an institution, which alongside my parents and my grammar school, is one of the three institutions I would credit with making me who I am."