Barbara Stocking

Dame Barbara Stocking DBE became the fifth President of Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge, in July 2013. As President, she aims to ensure that the College provides a world class education for women from all backgrounds and provides young women opportunities to develop the confidence and the skills to achieve their aspirations in the world.

Barbara was Chief Executive of Oxfam from May 2001 until February 2013. She was the first woman to lead the charity, one of the UK’s most successful and best known international development organisations.

Barbara has led major humanitarian responses most recently both the Horn of Africa and now West Africa food crises, as well as the Haiti earthquake, Pakistan floods and Tsunami. On campaigning Barbara led Oxfam’s work on Make Poverty History, and on climate change and Grow campaign on food justice in a resource constrained world.

Previously a member of the top management team of the National Health Service, in her eight years with the NHS, Barbara worked as regional director for the South East of England, and then as the founding Director of the NHS Modernisation Agency.

Barbara is the first President to be an alumna of the College, having read natural sciences, shifting from physics and chemistry towards pharmacology. She continued with a master’s in physiology at the University of Wisconsin.

Barbara is married and has two sons. She was awarded a CBE for health services in 2000 and a Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) for humanitarian services in the 2008.