Welcome

I started as President of City, University of London in June 2021, taking over the role from Professor Sir Paul Curran, who led the University for the past 11 years. Through his determination and leadership City was able to join the University of London and enhance our position in research. We also owe him for the fantastic developments in our campus. Please do read more about Professor Curran’s legacy in our features.

The theme of this year’s magazine is ‘change and change-makers’ because while there have been changes within City, my appointment amongst them, there have of course been unprecedented changes further afield –globally with the COVID-19 pandemic and domestically as we enter the post-Brexit period. Change is inevitable but it is how we rise to that change that matters – I think at City, we did rather well to cope with a tumultuous 18 months.

Our staff have worked incredibly hard to adapt to new ways of working all while ensuring that students’ learning was as little impacted as possible. Our alumni – some 150,000 individuals across 170 countries – continue to bring about positive changes wherever they are. Faith Odushola-Boegheim for example, a pilot who is paving the way for more women to enter the profession or Leigh Andrews who is using speech and language therapy to help people affected by homelessness. You can read more about Faith and Leigh as well as some of our other inspiring alumni in the Alumni to watch article.

We are proud of the progress we have made as a university from our early days as the Northampton Institute to the vibrant and forward-looking university we are today, focused on supporting our students, staff and alumni to succeed.

I have long-standing and deep personal connections to City, I identify strongly with its mission and think I understand something of what makes it ‘tick’. Yet, there is a lot of learning and listening that I need to do, which I look forward to doing as we continue to grow and make more changes together.

This is City – I hope you enjoy reading.