King Edward School VII Alumnus Awarded MBE for Services to Engineering

We are delighted to share that Peter Flinn (KES 1959-1966) has been awarded an MBE for ‘services to engineering’ in the King’s Birthday Honours list.

After leaving King Edward VII School, Peter read Mechanical Sciences at the University of Cambridge, took an MBA at Strathclyde Business School, and attended the senior international management programme at Harvard Business School.

Peter was 136th president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and has had a broad career in a variety of engineering industries- aerospace, automotive, rail and process – providing leadership at all points in the technology life cycle from research through product development to manufacturing and field support. Most of this has been in private industry but he also spent 10 years working between business, universities and government. This has given him a wide perspective of engineering with innovation and business as the common threads. This was the basis of his book, Managing Technology and Product Development Programmes, published in 2019.

His career in engineering and manufacturing was in four companies – BAE Systems, Leyland Trucks, ABB and Vectra Group - operating at Chief Engineer, Director and Managing Director-level.

From 2007 to 2017 Peter worked at the interface between industry, government and universities providing leadership to several high-profile projects - setting up the Manufacturing Technology Centre in Coventry, a similar role for the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, and as the interim director for the Aerospace Technology Institute, a body overseeing the UK’s aerospace R&D programme.

He was also chairman of the Advisory Board for the intelligent automation centre at Loughborough and Cranfield Universities from 2012-2017.

Congratulations Peter and thank you for sharing your inspirational career journey with us.