On 20 March 2025, Diana invited colleagues and friends to Woburn House to celebrate her time as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of London Higher. At the event, Diana delivered a speech reflecting on her journey and the achievements of the organisation during her tenure. A portion of this speech is available below.
Dr Diana Beech, outgoing CEO of London Higher:
It was five years ago in the summer term that I was interviewed by colleagues for the post of CEO of London Higher. I did not really know what the job was, or indeed whether I was cut out for it, but what I saw in the opportunity back then was the potential to work more closely with a wide range of higher education providers and really to become a champion and defender of the sector I love.
I recall the words of one vice-chancellor — not a London vice-chancellor either, I might add — who told me at the start of my career that you cannot really understand higher education policy unless you have done your time in London. And they were right. Whatever happens in this region happens first, worst, bigger or better. You name it. We do things by extremes. While that has meant that there has hardly been any time to take my foot off the gas over the past four and a half years, I like to think that I’ve earned my stripes and passed the hardest higher education policy test that there is out there.
I am certainly coming away from it with some great memories and some things I am really proud of. I am proud that we’ve put London Higher on the map when it comes to higher education policy and advocacy. I am proud we have build a ‘LondonHE’ community and that the simple hashtag I developed in the dark days of the 2020 lockdown has stuck. I will always be a flag flyer for #LondonHE! I am proud we were not afraid to do things differently and that we have paved the way for others to follow with various ideas and initiatives. For example, creating our civic map.
I wanted to show the world what being a civic university really means, and that London universities can be civic too. As a result, we now have a really powerful living resource of civic university activities in this region. However, I have always been humble enough to know that is just the London piece of a UK wide jigsaw and I know how powerful it would be to policymakers, and the outside world, if other regions followed to collectively piece together the UK-wide university civic map. So, I do hope one day that others will follow — especially if we’re serious about winning the hearts and minds of the people outside and getting them to appreciate the full extent of our sector’s contributions to society.
As much as I have loved flying the flag for London, and I really have, I hope it’s clear that I have always done so in a way that is not about pitting London against the rest of the country. It is about pitching London with and for the rest of the country. I grew up in one of England’s only three remaining higher education cold spots without a university and yet I ended up representing the country’s higher education hot spot. That journey has never been lost on me. So, I am proud that I have been able to use the London platform I have been given to raise the importance of the regional dimension in higher education policymaking and to help shape policies and initiatives that work for the whole country.
Diana’s concluded her speech by thanking multiple parties:
While I am proud to have been entrusted to steer the London Higher ship for the past four and a half years, I could not have done it without the most amazing crew and trusting passengers.
First, thank you to our members for engaging with us and making all of the things I just spoke about possible. Thank you, too, to our board of trustees for putting your trust in me almost five years ago to lead this organisation forward into the future. Finally, I have to say thank you to my team — past and present. I really could not have done any of this without you. So, thank you so much, everyone. It has been a pleasure. I will always look back on this job with fondness and really as the job that shaped me in this sector.
