Honorary degree for Treadell
BRITISH High Commissioner to Malaysia Vicki Treadell has been conferred an honorary degree from the University of Nottingham.
University of Nottingham Malaysia Provost and CEO Prof Graham Kendall said: “Today we are honoured to confer this award to a very distinguished person who was the first woman to hold the position of British High Commissioner to New Zealand.”
“We also had the privilege to work together in hosting Prince Charles in November 2017 at the invitation from her office.
“I was deeply honoured, for Vicki and myself, to be able to show His Royal Highness the very best of British education in Malaysia, when he visited the campus,” he said in his speech during the February graduation ceremony at the university campus in Semenyih.
Treadell has been the British High Commissioner to Malaysia since October 2014. She was previously British High Commissioner to New Zealand and Samoa and Governor of Pitcairn.
Before New Zealand, she was the British Deputy High Commissioner in Mumbai, covering Western India, from 2006 to 2010. Her main focus there was economic diplomacy, promoting two-way trade and investment, building relationships with corporate India and the main financial institutions headquartered in Mumbai such as Tata Group and the Reserve Bank of India.
During her time in Mumbai, she helped to land a number of key investments into the UK, the most significant of which was the Tata Motors acquisition of Jaguar Land Rover.
She also played a key role to support UK businesses in the Indian market, including helping to tackle market access issues for British investors such as JCB and Tesco.
As High Commissioner in New Zealand and now Kuala Lumpur, Treadell has proven skills in dealing with the most senior levels of government from the Prime Minister down and tackling tough issues when needed.
She won the Public Sector Award in the Asian Women of Achievement Award in 2009 and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Laws by Reading University in 2016.
Born in Malaysia, she lived here until she was eight when her family migrated to the UK in 1968.
More than 250 students from the Faculties of Arts & Social Sciences and Science and Engineering received their awards from University of Nottingham vice-chancellor Prof Shearer West.