Personality of the Week - 11th to 17th July 2011

KENNETH OLISA OBE

Born in England to an English mother and a Nigerian father, Ken Olisa studied at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge University, on an IBM scholarship, where he obtained an MA in Natural, Social & Political and Management Sciences. His technology career spans over 30 years commencing with IBM from whom he won a scholarship while at Cambridge University. At IBM he held various posts in systems engineering, sales and marketing, before joining Wang Laboratories in 1981. Following a period as Marketing Director for Europe, Vice President of US Marketing and then of Worldwide Marketing, Ken was appointed Senior Vice President and General Manager of Wang Europe, Africa and the Middle East. In this role, he was responsible for the sales, marketing, support, service and administration activities within 11 subsidiaries and 92 distributors.

After leaving Wang in 1992, Ken founded Interregnum, the technology merchant bank, which he led to a £100+m IPO on AIM in 2000. Today he leads the boutique technology merchant bank, Restoration Partners based in London. He was elected as a Fellow of the BCS - the Chartered Institute for IT in 2006. In addition to his entrepreneurial/private equity activities, Ken has considerable public company Board-level experience on both sides of the Atlantic. His connection with AIM dates back to the market's foundation. In 1995, he chaired Voss Net, the first UK ISP (Internet Service Provider) to go public and one of the first companies to list on AIM. He was later Chairman of the Board of the first Israeli company to list its shares on AIM - DMATEK. His current public company directorships include Thomson Reuters, Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) and he served as a Director of Open Text Corporation from 1998 to 2008.

As a Freeman, Ken is familiar with the workings of the City of London. Further, he is actively involved with the City of London's governance by serving as Senior Warden of the Court of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists. In 2003, Ken was named the BVCA/Real Deals Private Equity Personality of the Year and he was named NEDA/Sunday Times Non Executive Director of the Year for 2009. He was named one of the UK's ten most influential black businessmen in both the 2008 and 2009 Power Lists. Ken's pro bono activities include Chairman of Thames Reach, a charity working to end street homelessness in London, a Director of the Thomson Reuters Foundation and a member of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. He is the first British-born Nigerian to serve on the board of a major UK public company and is currently a director of FTSE listed ENRC and of Thomson Reuters. He serves on the board, or as adviser to, several privately held and innovative companies including Prevx, Independent Audit and Metapraxis. In 2009, he was appointed to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), the body charged with managing MPs'expenses, pay and pensions.

Ken was an inaugural member of the Postal Services Commission from 2000 to 2004 and a Governor of the Peabody Trust for a decade until 2007. On 14 June, 2010, he was awarded an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List for his work in tackling homelessness in London.

Sources include Wikipedia and Vox Africa.