Dido Harding is Chief Executive Officer of TalkTalk Telecom Group PLC, owner of the winning horse at the 1998 Cheltenham Gold Cup, and according to the listeners of BBC Radio's Woman's Hour, one of the 100 most powerful women in the UK.
In 1988 Dido joined McKinsey and Company as a consultant. After quickly rising through the ranks, she accepted her next challenge as Marketing Director at Thomas Cook. She then moved to Woolworth's Group as Commercial Director, then on to Tesco, first in the role of as Commercial Director of Tesco's 'added value foods' and then as International Support Director. In 2008 Dido joined the operating board at Sainsbury's as Convenience Director, and in 2010 she took over the helm at TalkTalk as Chief Executive Officer.
Dido was appointed as a non-executive director on The Court of The Bank of England in July 2014. She has also served on the boards of The British Land Company PLC and Cheltenham Racecourse. In September 2014 Dido took her seat in the House of Lords as a Conservative Peer.
"Vice Chancellor, it is my pleasure to read the citation for Baroness Dido Harding of Winscombe for the award of Doctor of Business Administration, Honoris Causa.
Dido Harding is Chief Executive Officer of TalkTalk Telecom Group PLC, owner of the winning horse at the 1998 Cheltenham Gold Cup, and according to the listeners of BBC Radio's Woman's Hour, one of the 100 most powerful women in the UK.
Raised in Dorset, Dido attended Leweston School before going up to Oxford where she studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics, at the same time as David Cameron. After graduating with a First, she then headed across the Atlantic to take her MBA at Harvard Business School.
Her professional career began in 1988 when she joined McKinsey and Company as a consultant. After quickly rising through the ranks, she accepted her next challenge as Marketing Director at Thomas Cook. Her next move was to Woolworth's Group as Commercial Director, then to Tesco, first in the role of as Commercial Director of Tesco's 'added value foods' and then as International Support Director. In 2008 she joined the operating board at Sainsbury's as Convenience Director, and in 2010 Dido took over the helm at TalkTalk as Chief Executive Officer. Dido was appointed as a non-executive director on The Court of The Bank of England in July 2014. She has also served on the boards of The British Land Company PLC and Cheltenham Racecourse. In August 2014 Dido was offered a Peerage and she will take her seat in the House of Lords as a Conservative Peer in the autumn.
Dido has built a reputation for being commercially savvy, tightly focused on providing her customers with a high-quality service and maintaining a close control over costs. Under her leadership, TalkTalk has done well in a viciously competitive marketplace.
Although clearly driven by powerful career ambitions, success in business hasn't been Dido's only motivation. A childhood spent in rural Dorset meant she grew up around animals and, as a keen horse rider, in 1993 she bought Cool Dawn, a thoroughbred horse, with a view to racing him in ladies' point-to-point events. The purchase proved to be not only a shrewd investment, but also the start of a remarkable sequence of events that culminated in the horse's victory in the 1998 Cheltenham Gold Cup. A 25/1 outsider, Cool Dawn led the race from start to finish, and Dido's experience both as owner and sometime rider led her to write the book Cool Dawn: My National Velvet, in which she recounts the pair's successes and failures.
Dido's success as a jockey was brought to a close by an earlier promise made to her husband, John Penrose MP. Dido has gone on the record as saying, "I made a really stupid promise to my husband, that I would retire as a jockey when I was 40. Unfortunately, John has made it a marriage-breaking issue that I keep that promise". Dido still rides, but no longer competitively - which is perhaps just as well, because back in the days when she pursued parallel careers in horse racing and business, it wasn't unknown for her to turn up at meetings, clearly suffering injuries sustained in serious falls.
This determination to crack on despite the challenges has defined her career, both in business and on the turf, and it's a major driver behind her continued success.
With her outstanding academic and business achievements, Dido is an excellent role model for our business students and has already donated valuable time to our International Business students, appearing last year as a guest lecturer. We are pleased to recognise her achievements as an outstanding business leader, and are delighted to welcome Dido Harding to our Anglia Ruskin community.
Vice Chancellor, it is my pleasure to present Dido Harding for the award of Doctor of Business Administration, honoris causa