Ken Olisa

Early life

Born in Nottingham in 1951 of a Nigerian father and a British mother, Olisa was educated at Nottingham High Pavement Grammar School and Fitzwilliam 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 at IBM. Olisa married Julia Sherwood in Cambridge in 1976.

Career

At IBM he held various posts before joining Wang Laboratories 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 unsuccessful management 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 with BDO Stoy Hayward, the AIM IPO in 2000. He was also a principal advisor to, and director of, uDate.com, which was later sold to Barry Diller's USA Interactive in 2003. Olisa retired from Interregnum in 2006 and now runs Restoration Partners.

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 former non-executive director of Thomson Reuters (where he was a member of the Audit Committee), and is also a former non-executive director and Deputy Chairman of the Institute 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 of Eurasian 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 and Sir 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.

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 the Powerlists Top 10 most influential British black people.

In 2012, he was appointed Chairman of the Thebes Group, an IT consultancy service provider.

In November 2017, Olisa succeeded Adedotun Sulaiman as the Chairman of Interswitch and in 2018 he joined the Board of Huawei (UK) resigning in March 2022.

In January 2023, Olisa was appointed Chairman of BusinessLDN (formerly known as London First) following the retirement of Paul Drechsler.

In 2024, he was appointed a Commissioner and Vice-Chair of the National Preparedness Commission. In 2025, he lectured at the Royal Geographical Society on the subject of national preparedness in the UK.

In March 2025, he was appointed a committee member of the Windrush Commemoration Committee.

Charitable Work

Olisa is also a patron of several charities, including School-Home Support (SHS), a charity helping disadvantaged children and young people overcome barriers to education such as poverty, domestic abuse, and housing issues. He is also Patron of Fore, a philanthropy fund charity which funds scale-up initiatives for other charities. In 2019, he was appointed President of London Youth. He has served as Chair of welfare to work charity Shaw Trust. He also served as President of Thames Reach, a charity working to shelter and resettle the homeless in London.

He is a trustee of King Charles III Charitable Fund formerly The Prince of Wales's Charitable Fund.

He is the patron of Red Trouser Day, a charity which raises awareness of colorectal cancer.

Honours and appointments

Olisa was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2010 Birthday Honours for services to homeless people in London, a Commander of the Order of St John in 2017 and a Knight Bachelor in the 2018 New Year Honours for services to business and philanthropy. Olisa was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London on 29 May 2015.

In 2018, he was awarded honorary doctorates by Kingston University and by Nottingham Trent University. He received a further honorary doctorate from the University of Worcester in 2019. and from the University of Westminster in 2023.

Olisa is a Freeman of the City of London. He is Founder and Chairman of the Powerlist Foundation (now the Aleto Foundation).

He is a Fellow of the British Computer Society since 2006, as well as a Life Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Life Fellow of the Institute of Directors.

His past appointments include serving as Master of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, Director of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, member of the Government's Women's Enterprise Taskforce; Governor of the Peabody Trust for ten years; non-executive director of the West Lambeth NHS Trust; and a start-up regulator twice: first as an inaugural Postal Services Commissioner, from 2001 to 2004, and as a board member of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, the body charged with managing the expenses, pay and pensions of members of parliament.

On 19 March 2019, Olisa greeted Queen Elizabeth II and the Duchess of Cambridge at the opening of the newly refurbished Bush House.

On 17 May 2021, Olisa became High Bailiff and Searcher of the Sanctuary at Westminster Abbey in succession to Sir Roy Strong. In that role, he took part in the 2023 Coronation. In October 2021, Olisa was elected as an Honorary Bencher of the Inner Temple.

In 2025 Olisa was elected Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

References

;Footnotes

;Sources

• The Telegraph website
• The Guardian website
• Interview with The Sunday Times
• Profile of Ken Olisa at Thames Reach

References

1. "Sir Ken Olisa OBE, CStJ, FRSA, FBCS".
2. "Index entry". ONS.
3. (2013). "Ken Olisa lecture online". Fitzwilliam College.
4. "Index entry". ONS.
5. (10 March 2015). "WANG Megatrends".
6. "Home – Restoration Partners".
7. "Board of Directors".
8. "Ken Olisa OBE – Chairman – Independent Audit Limited".
9. "Powerlist website".
10. (2002-02-08). "Thebes Group".
11. (2022-03-09). "Huawei UK's British board members resign over Russia-Ukraine stance". Reuters.
12. (2022-10-06). "Sir Kenneth Olisa announced as new Chair of BusinessLDN".
13. (2023-12-14). "Square Mile and Me: Lord-Lieutenant Ken Olisa on Saturday jobs and City faux pas".
14. "Our Team - National Preparedness Commission".
15. "The Royal Geographical Society".
16. (2025-03-11). "The Windrush Commemoration Committee".
17. Kellett, Francisca. (2024-09-06). "'The buzz isn't about money, but wanting to make lives better'".
18. (4 April 2019). "Sir Kenneth Olisa OBE appointed President of London Youth".
19. (May 2025). "Announcement of Shaw Trust Chairmanship".
20. "Governance".
21. "Patron".
22. {{London Gazette. (12 June 2010)
23. {{London Gazette. (15 June 2017)
24. {{London Gazette. (30 December 2017)
25. {{London Gazette. (3 June 2015)
26. "Influential business leaders, entrepreneurs and leading diplomat to be recognised with honorary awards from Kingston University".
27. "Lord Lieutenant and respected theatre maker to receive honorary degrees". Nottingham Trent University.
28. "University to Celebrate Achievements of More Than 3,900 Students at Annual Graduation Ceremonies – University of Worcester".
29. "University of Westminster awards Honorary Degrees and Fellowships at 2023 summer graduation ceremony | University of Westminster".
30. (22 March 2019). "Kate Middleton's first solo outing with the Queen". [[The South African]].
31. (17 May 2021). "Order of Service".
32. "Lord-Lieutenant of London installed as High Bailiff".
33. (5 May 2023). "Coronation order of service in full". BBC News.
34. "Royal Academy of Engineering welcomes 74 new Fellows". Royal Academy of Engineering.