Ken Olisa
Ken's technology career spans over 30 years, commencing with IBM from whom he won a scholarship while at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge University, where he read Natural, Social, Political and Management Sciences.
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 Europe, Africa and the Middle East (EAME). Here he was responsible for the sales, marketing, support, service and administration activities within 11 Wang subsidiaries and 92 distributors. In that role, he led the team which restored the EAME operation to profitability; following which he launched an unsuccessful MBO resulting in his departure!
Ken moved on to test his entrepreneurial mettle by founding Interregnum, the technology merchant bank (www.interregnum.com) in 1992. He led that company through the rollercoaster ride of its early growth; its entry into, and exit from, a joint venture with BDO Stoy Hayward; the IPO on London’s AIM exchange in 2000 and the tricky years that followed the collapse of the dotcom boom.
At Interregnum, Ken worked at the forefront of the entrepreneur/technology growth cycle which commenced in the mid 1990s. As well as serving on the Boards of many of Interregnum’s investments and advisory clients, Ken notched up some interesting firsts, including chairing the UK’s first publicly listed Internet Service Provider (ISP) – Voss Net – on its admission to AIM and holding a similar position on the Board of the first Israeli technology company to be listed on the junior exchange, DMATEK. He was also a principal advisor to, and Director of, uDate.com, which became one of the UK’s few dotcom successes when it was sold to Barry Diller’s USA Interactive in 2003. Ken retired from Interregnum in 2006 and now runs the boutique technology merchant bank Restoration Partners.
Ken is the first British-born black man to serve on the Board of a major UK public company, and is currently a Director of Thomson Reuters (where he is a member of the Audit Committee). He was a Director (and Chair of the Remuneration Committee) of Canada’s largest software developer, Open Text Corporation, for a decade until December 2008 and served as a Director of FTSE 50 ENRC (Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation) from 2008 to 2011. In addition, he serves on the Board of, or is an adviser to, several innovative privately-held companies including Prevx, Independent Audit and Metapraxis.
Ken’s knowledge and experience of large and small enterprises, technology and marketing - and his willingness to speak his mind - makes him a much-demanded public speaker. A believer in the Victorian ethos that successful commerce is the fuel of public service, Ken is: a Freeman of the City of London; Deputy Master of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists; a Director of the Thomson Reuters Foundation; Chairman of Thames Reach (a charity working to shelter and resettle the homeless in London); a Vice President of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT; a past member of the Government’s Women’s Enterprise Taskforce and was an inaugural Postal Services Commissioner from 2001 to 2004. In 2009, he was appointed to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) the body charged with managing MPs’ expenses, pay and pensions. He was named 2009 Sunday Times UK Not for Profit Non Executive Director of the year.
He is a past winner of the BVCA/Real Deals Private Equity Personality of the Year Award, and he was named in the UK’s Top 10 most influential black men in the Powerlist 2010.
In 2010, he was awarded an OBE for his services to the homeless of London.
Ken married Julia in 1976 and they have two adult daughters, Elinor and Auriol.