Graduation | Tuesday 14 July am

Professor Charles Lees was previously Dean (People and Resources) and Professor of Government in the College of Business, Government and Law at Flinders University, Australia (2017–2022) and Head of Department and Professor of Politics in the Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies at the University of Bath (2011–2017).

He writes on electoral behaviour, party systems, coalition government and environmental politics and policy, and has provided research and advice for the Centre for American Progress, Australian Labor Party, the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand, the UK House of Lords and the Scottish Executive amongst others.

He is a Visiting Professorial Fellow at the University of Sussex and Associate Fellow in the Institute for German and European Studies at the University of Birmingham. He has held visiting fellowships at the University of California San Diego, the Australian National University, the University of Sydney, the University of Bath, and Cardiff University.

Adrian Haxby has worked in and around the City of London for over 40 years, qualifying as a Chartered Accountant in 1985 and then joining S.G. Warburg & Co. Ltd, an investment bank, which eventually became part of UBS. At UBS he worked as a Managing Director in London, Paris and Frankfurt advising corporate clients on wide range of transactions, including IPOs, mergers & acquisitions and capital raising.

He is currently a partner in Opus Corporate Finance, a corporate advisory boutique specialising in Energy Transition and Climate Change. During and after his time at UBS he acted as Chair of HBV, a Hackney-based charity for the alleviation of poverty promoting and funding entrepreneurship among the immigrant community in the borough.

He became a lay member of Council at City University in 2015 and served on Council for 9 years as a member of the Strategic Implementation, Audit & Risk and Finance Committees. His particular areas of focus on Council were the University’s strategic development, financial performance and sustainability and the student experience. He remained as a Special Appointee to the Finance Committee for the purposes of the merger of City, University of London and St George’s University, which completed in July 2024.

He was educated at The Minster School, Southwell and St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he read Classics & Modern Languages (BA Hons.).

He passed two significant age milestones in the last year: he became a grandfather (twice) and purchased a 7-wood (a golf club for older gentlemen).

His interests outside work include his family, golf, skiing, sailing, fly fishing and indoor rowing. He is married to Vivienne (“Viv”) and has three children Edmund, William and Clementine and two grandchildren Lily and Arlo.

Presiding Officer: Professor Elisabeth Hill, Deputy President & Provost, City St George’s, University of London

The procession will enter the Hall, accompanied by Marshals, in the following order:

1. Students’ Union Mace
2. Officers of the Students’ Union
3. Chaplains
4. Academic staff
5. Departmental presenters
6. Honorary graduand
7. Senate
8. Council
9. Executive Dean of School
10. Vice-President
11. University Mace
12. Deputy President & Provost

Order of the ceremony

1. Incoming procession: accompanied by ‘Prelude to Te Deum’ by Charpentier
2. Opening address: Professor Elisabeth Hill, Deputy President & Provost, City St George’s, University of London
3. Award of Honorary degree: Adrian Haxby
4. Officiating Dean’s speech: Professor Charlie Lees, Executive Dean, School of Policy & Global Affairs
5. Award of degrees
6. Closing address:  Chiara Rex (BSc Criminology with Data Analytics)
7. Outgoing procession: accompanied by ‘Sonata from Die Bankelsangerlieder’ by Daniel Speer