Britain’s entrepreneurs have taken centre stage in the King’s Birthday Honours List 2026, published on Friday evening, with damehoods, knighthoods and a sweep of CBEs, OBEs and MBEs recognising the founders, family firms and FTSE bosses who keep the UK economy moving.
At the top of the list, Jane Fraser, the Scottish-born chief executive and chair of Citigroup, becomes a Dame for services to the financial sector. Citi serves 85 per cent of FTSE 100 companies and has confirmed a $1.5 billion investment in its London headquarters, a notable vote of confidence in the City from the first woman ever to run a major Wall Street bank.
She is joined by fellow Dame Helen Gordon, chief executive of Grainger plc, honoured for services to the property industry after transforming the UK’s largest listed residential landlord into the country’s build-to-rent leader and serving on the government’s New Towns Taskforce.
Sir Alastair King, the immediate past Lord Mayor of London, receives a knighthood for services to pensions reform and the promotion of international business, having driven the Mansion House Accord that secured a £100 billion commitment to private market investment from UK pension providers.
Andrew Mitchell, chief executive of Tideway, is knighted for services to the construction industry after delivering the £5 billion Thames super sewer on time and on budget, while Peter Lord and David Sproxton, who co-founded Aardman Animations in 1976 and built the studio behind Wallace & Gromit and Shaun the Sheep into a global force whose films have grossed more than $1 billion, before handing the business to its employees in 2018, both receive knighthoods for services to the animation and creative industries.
There is a striking theme running through the senior business awards: female entrepreneurship. Both co-chairs of the Invest in Women Taskforce, Hannah Bernard, group director of business banking at Nationwide, and serial entrepreneur Deborah Wosskow, are made CBEs for services to female entrepreneurship and access to finance for women. The recognition comes just months after the taskforce surpassed £635 million in commitments for its landmark ‘Women backing Women’ fund.
They are joined by Charlotte Tilbury, sole founder of the beauty empire that bears her name and which sold a controlling stake to Spain’s Puig in a deal valuing it at up to £1 billion, who is upgraded from MBE to CBE for services to the beauty and cosmetics industry.
Other business CBEs include Christopher Hulatt, co-founder of Octopus Group, for services to entrepreneurship; Nigel Terrington, chief executive of Paragon Banking Group; Diana Brightmore-Armour, chief executive of C. Hoare & Co, for services to women and diversity in financial services; Bernard Mensah, president of international at Bank of America; Patrick Heath-Lay, chief executive of People’s Partnership, for services to the pensions industry; Joseph O’Neill, chief executive of Belfast Harbour; Julia Pyke, joint managing director of Sizewell C; David Currie, chair of Aberdeen-headquartered Proserv; and Professor Monder Ram, founder of the Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship.
For Business Matters readers there is no more cheering name on the list than David Fishwick, the Burnley minibus magnate turned community banker whose decade-long fight to launch Burnley Savings and Loans inspired the hit Netflix film Bank of Dave. He receives an OBE for services to finance, business and charity.
The OBEs are rich in SME success stories: Clare Hornby, founder of fashion brand ME+EM; Neil Clifford, chief executive of Kurt Geiger; Sophie Ross, founder of Trotters Childrenswear; June MacGeachy, co-founder of Glasgow lab-gas maker Peak Scientific; Maitland Mackie, chairman of ice cream maker Mackie’s of Scotland; John Grant, chair of Speyside whisky distiller J. & G. Grant; Ifty Nasir, founder of share-scheme platform Vestd; Philip Newborough, co-founder of Bridges Fund Management; John Paul Harkin, founder of Derry’s Alchemy Technology Services; Catherine Handcock, founder of Creative HEAD; and Chenelle Ansah, chief executive of Nell Consulting, for services to investment and women in business.
Big-company leadership is recognised too, with OBEs for Amazon’s UK country manager John Boumphrey, Unilever chief brand officer Aline Santos, EY managing partner Rohan Malik, and the recently departed chief executives of Rentokil Initial and Dunelm, Andy Ransom and Nick Wilkinson.
Lower down the order of precedence, the MBEs tell the story of Britain’s family businesses: brothers Geoffrey and Martin Agnew, joint executive chairs of Northern Ireland grocery group Henderson, are honoured together, alongside Trevor Annon, chair and managing director of catering group Mount Charles; Geoffrey Ball, owner of Staffordshire flooring adhesives manufacturer F. Ball and Co; Robert Barlow, founder of TDP Recycled Plastic Furniture; chef Andreas Antona, for services to hospitality; and Bukola Babajide, founder of Crystal Options and the Female Techpreneur platform, for services to technology, business and inclusion.
The honours land barely a month after 186 SMEs collected King’s Awards for Enterprise in the scheme’s 60th anniversary year, a reminder, twice over, that from Burnley to the Square Mile, British business is being built by people the establishment is finally learning to celebrate.
