Honours for seven at Teesside

The chief executive of the arts council, a sports writer and a digital music entrepreneur are among the seven distinguished figures to be awarded honorary degrees by Teesside University in November.

The University’s 2012 honorary graduates in the order they will receive their degrees are:

Bill Scott - Doctor of Business Administration Bill Scott is the founder and Chief Executive of the Wilton Group, the Teesside-based engineering group. The Group was founded in 1994 as Wilton Engineering Services and has massively grown and expanded since then, now employing over 800 people with an annual turnover of over £85m. He was named North East Business Executive of the Year last year and is a major supporter of local charities.

Sir Ian Wrigglesworth - Doctor of Business Administration - Sir Ian Wrigglesworth comes from Stockton. He was, until this year, Deputy Chairman of the Government’s Regional Growth Fund advisory panel. He is former Chairman of the Port of Tyne, former Executive Chairman of UK Land Estates and former Chairman of the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art. He is the former Member of Parliament for Teesside Thornaby, and later Stockton South, and has previously served as Deputy Chairman of the University Board of Governors.

Harry Pearson - Doctor of Letters Harry Pearson comes from Middlesbrough. He is a writer on sport – notably the author of The Far Corner (shortlisted for the 1995 British Sports Book of the Year award) and Slipless in Settle (which won the 2011 Cricket Society and MCC Book of the Year award). Harry has written for the football magazine When Saturday Comes for over 20 years and is a Guardian columnist.

Professor Bev Skeggs - Doctor of Letters Bev Skeggs comes from Middlesbrough. She is Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Bev is one of the most prominent sociologists of her generation and is the joint managing editor of the 100-year old Sociological Review. Her work is in the areas of women’s studies and cultural studies, as well as sociology. Bev is an elected Academician of the Academy of the Learned Societies for the Social Sciences.

Stephen Purdham - Doctor of Business Administration Steve Purdham is an alumnus of the University, graduating from the BSc Computer Science. He enjoys building technology companies, such as SurfControl Plc which he jointly founded and guided through hyper growth, eventually employing over 750 people in 14 countries with profitable revenues of over $120m before being acquired in 2007 - Identum, a small spin out from Bristol University which was sold to Trend Micro Inc and more recently he is the CEO of the UK digital music company We7, the company he was founder investor in 2007 with former Genesis frontman Peter Gabriel. Tesco has recently acquired We7.

Alan Davey - Doctor of Art Alan Davey comes from Billingham-on-Tees. He was appointed Chief Executive of the Arts Council England in 2007. Prior to this he was Director for Culture at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, having previously worked in the Department as Head of the Arts Division. Alan is a passionate advocate of the role of art in university and public life.

Eric Leong - Doctor of Art (to be presented at Malaysian awards ceremony) Eric Leong is a renowned interior designer in Malaysia and has worked in the industry for over 20 years. He presents a long-running Malaysian television programme on interior design. Eric is known in Malaysia as The Design King and is internationally renowned for the imagination and quality of his work. He has made a major international contribution to design education, including delivering master classes to MA students at our University.

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