Sir Kenneth Olisa

Kenneth Aphunezi Olisa was born on 13 October 1951 in Nottingham, England, to a Nigerian father and a British mother. He has spoken of a childhood surrounded by 'outside toilets and bomb sites as playgrounds,' attending Nottingham High Pavement Grammar School before winning a scholarship to Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, where he studied Natural Sciences and then Social, Political and Management Sciences.

Olisa's technology career began at IBM, which he joined on scholarship while still at Cambridge, and continued over twelve years as a senior executive at Wang Laboratories across the UK, Belgium, and the United States. In 1992 he founded Interregnum, a technology-focused merchant bank, which he floated on the London Stock Exchange's AIM market at the height of the dotcom boom in 2000, making him the first British-born Black man to serve as a director of a major UK public company. He later founded and continues to lead Restoration Partners, a boutique technology merchant bank, and serves as Chairman of Interswitch, Africa's largest e-payments company.

Alongside his business career, Olisa has built a long record of public service: he has served as an NHS Trust director, an inaugural member of the Postal Services Commission and the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, and a Governor of the Peabody Trust. He founded the Aleto Foundation, a leadership programme for young people from Black, minority ethnic, and disadvantaged backgrounds, and has chaired charities including Thames Reach and the Shaw Trust.

In 2015 Queen Elizabeth II appointed Olisa Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London, making him the first mixed-race person to hold the role in its roughly 500-year history. He was awarded an OBE in 2010 for services to homeless people and was knighted in the 2018 New Year Honours for services to business and philanthropy. He continues to serve as Lord-Lieutenant under King Charles III, alongside roles including High Bailiff of Westminster Abbey.