Pembroke alumni recognised in King's Birthday Honours

Thursday, 20 June 2024 (updated Monday, 24 June).

Greg Jackson (1991), Professor Rajesh (Raj) Thakker FRS (1974) and Blaise Metreweli (1995) have been recognised in this year's King's Birthday Honours.

Greg Jackson has been awarded a CBE for 'services to the Energy Industry.' Greg is CEO and founder of Octopus Energy, the UK's second-largest energy company, supplying 6 million homes.

Greg read Economics at Pembroke and embarked on a career as a serial tech entrepreneur after leaving Cambridge. He founded Octopus Energy in 2015, inspired by his childhood experience of having his family’s energy supply cut off when he was growing up, to make access to energy greener and fairer. In his own words, Greg 'loves building organisations around people, disrupting industries which underserve customers and society.'

Raj Thakker has been awarded an OBE for 'services to Medical Science and to People with Hereditary and Rare Disorders.' He is the May Professor of Medicine in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine at the University of Oxford, a Fellow of Somerville College and lately the President of the Society of Endocrinology. In 2014, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Raj specialises in multiple endocrine neoplasia 1 (MEN1) and neuroendocrine tumours. His research focuses on identifying genes whose mutations are involved in causing endocrine tumours and diseases, and exploring mechanisms of G protein-coupled receptor signalling to identify new therapeutic targets.

Blaise Metreweli (1995) has received a CMG for 'services to British Foreign Policy'. She is Director General, Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office.

(Image of Professor Thakker: The Royal Society, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)