Ken Olisa | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London | |
| Assumed office 29 May 2015 | |
| Monarchs | Elizabeth II Charles III |
| Preceded by | Sir David Brewer |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Kenneth Aphunezi Olisa (1951-10-13)13 October 1951 (age 73) Nottingham,Nottinghamshire, England |
| Spouse | |
| Alma mater | Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge |
Sir Kenneth Aphunezi Olisa (born 13 October 1951) is a British businessman and philanthropist. He is the firstmixed-raceLord-Lieutenant of Greater London. He founded and led the AIM-listed technology merchant bank Interregnum and now leads Restoration Partners. Ken Olisa is Past Master of theWorshipful Company of Information Technologists and has served and serves on several boards of philanthropic, educational and regulator organisations. Sir Kenneth with his wife endowed the Olisa Library atFitzwilliam College, Cambridge.
Born inNottingham[1] in 1951 of aNigerian father and a British mother,[2] Olisa was educated atNottingham High Pavement Grammar School andFitzwilliam College, Cambridge, where he held a scholarship and studied Natural Sciences and then Social, Political and Management Sciences. His technology career began in the 1970s atIBM.[3] Olisa married Julia Sherwood in Cambridge in 1976.[4]
At IBM he held various posts before joiningWang Laboratories[5] in 1981. Following a period as marketing director for Europe, VP of US Marketing and then of Worldwide Marketing based in Boston, he was appointed Senior VP and general manager of Europe, Africa and the Middle East (EAME) located in Brussels. He led the team which restored the EAME operation to profitability, following which he launched an unsuccessfulmanagement buyout resulting in his departure in 1992.
Olisa then founded Interregnum, a technology merchant bank, leading it through its early growth, its entry into and exit from a joint venture withBDO Stoy Hayward, the AIM IPO in 2000. He was also a principal advisor to, and director of, uDate.com, which was later sold toBarry Diller's USA Interactive in 2003. Olisa retired from Interregnum in 2006 and now runs Restoration Partners.[6]
Olisa has considerable public company board-level experience on both sides of the Atlantic. He was the first British-born black man to serve on the board of a major UK public company (Reuters) and is a formernon-executive director ofThomson Reuters (where he was a member of the Audit Committee),[7] and is also a former non-executive director and Deputy Chairman of theInstitute of Directors.
He was a Director and Chairman of the Remuneration Committee of Canada's largest independent software developer,Open Text Corporation. More recently, he served as a non-executive director ofEurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) from 2007 and from which he was fired over governance concerns after which he coined the expression "More Soviet than City" to describe the way he andSir Richard Sykes had been treated. He also serves on the boards of, or is an adviser to, several privately held and innovative companies including the UK's leading corporate governance advisor Independent Audit.[8]
Olisa is also Chairman of the Thebes Group and not for profitShaw Trust.[9]
In 2009,The Sunday Times named him Not for Profit non-executive director of the year, and in 2016 he was voted number one in thePowerlist's Top 10 most influential British black people.[10]
In November 2017, Olisa succeeded Adedotun Sulaiman as the Chairman ofInterswitch and in 2018 he joined the Board ofHuawei (UK) resigning in March 2022[11]
In January 2023, Olisa was appointed Chairman ofBusinessLDN (formerly known as London First)[12] following the retirement ofPaul Drechsler.
Olisa was appointedOfficer of the Order of the British Empire in the2010 Birthday Honours for services to homeless people in London, aCommander of the Order of St John in 2017 and aKnight Bachelor in the2018 New Year Honours for services to business and philanthropy.[13][14][15] Olisa was appointedLord-Lieutenant of Greater London on 29 May 2015.[16]
In 2018, he was awardedhonorary doctorates byKingston University[17] and byNottingham Trent University.[18] He received a further honorary doctorate from theUniversity of Worcester in 2019.[19]
Olisa is aFreeman of the City of London; President ofThames Reach, a charity working to shelter and resettle the homeless in London; Founder and Chairman of the Powerlist Foundation (now the Aleto Foundation); Fellow of theBritish Computer Society since 2006; Life Fellow of theRoyal Society of Arts; Life Fellow of the Institute of Directors; and, in 2021, he was appointed High Bailiff and Searcher of the Sanctuary ofWestminster Abbey. In that role, he took part in the2023 Coronation.[20]
Olisa is also apatron of several charities, includingSchool-Home Support (SHS), a charity helping disadvantaged children and young people overcome barriers to education such as poverty, domestic abuse, and housing issues; Fore, a charity which funds scale-up initiatives for other charities]. In 2019, he was appointed President ofLondon Youth.[21]
His past appointments include serving as Master of theWorshipful Company of Information Technologists, Director of theThomson Reuters Foundation, member of the Government's Women's Enterprise Taskforce; Governor of thePeabody Trust for ten years; non-executive director of the West Lambeth NHS Trust; and a start-up regulator twice: first as an inauguralPostal Services Commissioner, from 2001 to 2004, and as a board member of theIndependent Parliamentary Standards Authority, the body charged with managing the expenses, pay and pensions of members of parliament.
On 19 March 2019, Olisa greeted QueenElizabeth II and theDuchess of Cambridge at the opening of the newly refurbishedBush House.[22]
On 17 May 2021, Olisa became High Bailiff and Searcher of the Sanctuary at Westminster Abbey in succession to Sir Roy Strong.[23][24]
In October 2021 Olisa was elected as an Honorary Bencher of theInner Temple
He is a trustee ofThe Prince of Wales's Charitable Fund.[25]
He is the patron ofRed Trouser Day, a charity which raises awareness of colorectal cancer.[26]
| Honorary titles | ||
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| Preceded by | Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London 2015–present | Incumbent |