Honorary Fellow Jane Cordell

Honourable Chancellor I have pleasure in presenting Jane Cordell for the award of an Honorary Fellowship from Liverpool John Moores University. 

This award is given in recognition of her outstanding contribution to disability rights, social justice and promotion. Jane is a Founder/Director of ‘Result CIC’ (a Community Interest Company), which won the 2015 National Diversity Award, recognising the companies impact specialising and providing training and coaching for Disabled and Deaf people.

Jane is listed on the Power 100 list of the UK's most influential Disabled people. Before her work at CIC Result, Jane work for the British Foreign Office and received four awards for her work as the first senior deaf diplomat in Poland, supporting its disability rights legislative reform. 

Jane graduated with a degree in English from Cambridge University, becoming deaf in her mid-twenties. She then took a MEd at the Open University. Her career encompasses professional music, teaching and lecturing, editorial work, diplomacy, charity governance, including Chairing DaDaFest (Deaf and Disability arts) for 5 years, coaching, equality campaigning and social entrepreneurship. She became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2016.

All aspects of her career demonstrates just how much Jane is a people person. Her sensitivity and ability to get alongside others, no matter their background, changes their lives. I first met Jane through an introduction by Sir Bert Massie who sadly passed away last year, when searching for a new chair of DaDaFest. We hit it off straightaway and Jane’s passion for the arts shone through. We talked in depth about the challenges disabled and Deaf people face on an almost daily basis, and acknowledged how we have both come through tough times and now have a purpose to make things better for others.

Apart from developing a wonderful friendship with Jane, she also introduced me to the services of Lip Speakers. In 2012 I was in a place of almost no hearing and finding it very hard to continue in some aspects of my work. Meeting her gave me a new lease in life and I will be forever grateful.

Jane is such a caring person and I have been constantly amazed at her ability to support others, freely giving time by being on many focus and advisory groups, from local communities through to government select committees; plus giving her skills and dedication on boards that represent Disability and Deaf issues.

She is also the ultimate diplomat, an astute problem solver and a generous and totally, gorgeous woman. She so deserves this accolade and I introduce her to you as a woman who changes the World. 

For her outstanding achievement and personal commitment, it is with great pleasure that I present Jane Cordell for admission to our highest honour, as an Honorary Fellow of Liverpool John Moores University.