Award-winning publisher receives honorary degree

Pioneering publisher, Darren Styles OBE has been awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Business by Solent University today (Tuesday 9 July). 

Darren is the managing director and founder of Steam Publishing, established in 2008, which has twice won the Professional Publishers’ Association (PPA) Customer Magazine of the Year Award for Independent Publishers.

Publishing a wide variety of consumer and B2B magazines, Darren has worked with clients including Cunard, Channel 4, CityJet, Liberty of London, Jaguar, P&O Cruises, SPAR, Vauxhall and Virgin Atlantic.

Styles is also the owner and publisher of the award-winning Attitude magazine, a founding trustee of the Attitude Magazine Foundation, and has become a respected, relatable and prominent voice within the wider LGBTQ community.

An ambassador for Downing Street’s GREAT Britain Campaign, promoting Great Britain and Northern Ireland as a place to visit, invest or get an education, Darren is also Patron of the Elton John AIDS Foundation. He was awarded an OBE in The Queen’s Birthday Honours List, 2018, for services to the economy, diversity and charity.

As a guest lecturer at Solent University, Darren has enabled students to benefit from his unique insight to further develop core business skills, particularly on the fashion journalism degree courses.

Commenting on his honorary degree, Darren said: “I feel privileged and extremely proud to be receiving this honorary doctorate from Solent University. I am fortunate to have been able to spend most of my career working for myself, in a field I love, in an industry that accepts all-comers for who they are. As such, I’ve never shied away from using any platform for the greater good, have been pleased to speak out when called to do so, be the issues local or global.

“To have been able to share some of that experience with the students at Solent University has been extremely rewarding, and stimulating, too. The have proved open, engaged and completely plugged into the core editorial values they will need to sustain a career in one of the fastest-changing media environments of my lifetime. This honour is deeply appreciated.”