Sir Kenneth Olisa OBE

Ken is Founder and Chairman of Restoration Partners, the boutique technology merchant bank and architects of Inogesis formerly known as The Virtual Technology Cluster model. Ken’s technology career spans over 30 years commencing with IBM from whom he won a scholarship while at Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge.

In 1992, after twelve years as a senior executive at Wang Labs in the US and Europe, Ken founded Interregnum, the technology merchant bank.

He was elected as a Fellow of the British Computer Society in 2006.

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He is currently Chairman of Interswitch (Africa’s largest e-payments company). He is a former Director of Thomson Reuters, a former deputy Chair at the Institute of directors and Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) where he coined the famous epigram “More Soviet than City” to describe the manner of his departure.

Ken is a Freeman of the City of London, Liveryman and Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, Patron of Thames Reach (for which he received an OBE in 2010), and Chairman of charity Shaw Trust.

He was an original member of the Postal Services Commission (PostComm) and the Independent Parliamentary Standard Authority (IPSA) and is the Founder and Chairman of the Aleto Foundation.

Sir Kenneth Olisa MBE Restoration Partners technolgy financier backer Huawei diversity speaker at Great British Speakers

He is a past Sunday Times Not for Profit Non-Executive Director of the year and was named Number 1 in the 2016 Powerlist’s roster of the UK’s most influential black people.

In 2013 Ken and his wife, Julia, endowed the Olisa Library at his alma mater Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.

In 2015, Her Majesty the Queen appointed Ken as Her Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant for Greater London and he was knighted in the 2018 New Year’s Honours List for services to business and philanthropy.

In September 2018 Ken was appointed as the director on the board of Huawei a Chinese multinational networking, telecommunications equipment and Services Company.

Sir Kenneth is President of London Youth, a member network of 450+ community youth organisations working across London, supporting tens of thousands of young Londoners each year through their sports, arts, employment and social action programmes and outdoor learning at their residential centres in East Sussex and Buckinghamshire.

Sir Kenneth Olisa OBE Restoration Partners technolgy financier backer BAME diversity speaker at Great British Speakers