Eleven ICAEW Chartered Accountants will receive awards in King Charles III’s first New Year’s Honours list. Among them is the Rt Hon Alok Sharma MP, President of the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), who has been awarded a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George, KBE, for services to tackling climate change.

Sharma says: “I am truly humbled to receive this honour. Delivering the COP26 conference and getting almost 200 countries to agree the Glasgow Climate Pact were collectively a great UK team effort, supported by many of our dedicated civil servants and diplomats around the world.

“However, if we are to keep alive the prospect of limiting average global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, which will help to avert the worst impacts of climate change, all countries need to redouble efforts to meet their climate commitments.”

Meanwhile Jane Portas, co-founder of Insuring Women’s Futures, member of Women’s Business Council and creator of financial approach 6 Moments That Matter, has been awarded an OBE for services to business and equality.

“I am delighted to receive this honour for my services to business and to equality and would like to acknowledge the many people, members and organisations who have supported Insuring Women’s Futures, my work on economic abuse and financial resilience more broadly,” she says. “This has also demonstrated the unique and significant contribution financial and professional services can make to securing fair financial futures for all employees and customers.”

Portas adds: “One of the key findings of my work on people’s financial lives is the importance of trust and confidence in the financial system, as well as the role qualifications play in empowering fair financial livelihoods. On a personal level, the ACA qualification has been foundational in both my professional services career and in my work to effect social change.”

OBEs also go to Michael Karp, Trustee, Holocaust Educational Trust, for services to Holocaust Education and Remembrance, and Ralph Findlay, Chairman of C&C Group plc, for services to the hospitality sector.

Chartered accountant Rev Canon John Tattersall has also been awarded a CBE for his contibution to financial services, particularly in relation to his role as Chair of UK Asset Resolution, which was formed to recover the government’s expenditure in the rescue of Bradford & Bingley plc and Northern Rock plc.

Rev Tattersall says: “I was delighted to be honoured with a CBE in the New Year’s Honours List for my services to the financial sector, with particular reference to my role as Chair of UK Asset Resolution, the government’s ‘Bad Bank’. I focused on the financial sector throughout my career with PwC and its predecessor firms, and with the support of the firm I was able to make a contribution to the development and effectiveness of financial services regulation in the UK and around the world. That experience was very helpful in securing some very interesting non-executive roles after I retired from PwC in 2009.”

After retiring from PwC, Rev Tattersall took up the post of Chair of the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission, the financial regulator in Gibraltar, as well as Chair of UK Asset Resolution. 

“Undoubtedly my chartered accountancy qualification was a vital underpinning to all of these roles,” he says.

MBEs go to:

Rupert Evenett, Christ the King Sixth Forms’ Chair of Governors, for services to Education.

Vivian Bairstow, Partner, Begbies Traynor, for charitable services. Bairstow was Honorary Treasurer of Egham-by-Runnymede Historical Society to 1991 and was one of the founding Trustees of The Egham Museum Trust. 

Peter Crawshaw, outgoing Director of England Athletics Board and previously Chair of its London Regional Council, for outstanding services to athletics. 

Hamish Elvidge, Founder and Chair of The Support After Suicide Partnership, for his services to mental health.

BEMs go to:

Michael Brown, aged 92, for services to Holocaust Education and Awareness. Brown, who arrived just days before Britain in 1939 declared war against Germany, worked with the Holocaust Educational Trust to tell his story.

Peter Nicol, Chair of Governors, Bury College, Bury, Greater Manchester, for services to education.