Sir Kenneth Olisa OBE

Chair of Restoration Partners

Chair of the Judging Panel

Ken is Founder and Chairman of Restoration Partners, the boutique technology merchant bank and architects of 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, Cambridge University. In 1992, after a 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. He has considerable public company Board-level experience on both sides of the Atlantic. He is currently a director of Thomson Reuter. He is also on the board of The Institute of Directors as a Non-Executive Director. Ken is a Freeman of the City of London; Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists; a Director of the Thomson Reuters Foundation; Chairman of Thames Reach (for which he received an OBE in 2010); Chairman of Shaw Trust, was an original member of IPSA (Independent Parliamentary Standard Authority) and Founder and Chairman of the Powerlist Foundation. In 2009, he was named the Sunday Times Not for Profit Non-Executive Director of the year.

Ken was voted number one in the Powerlist’s Top 10 most influential British black people in 2016. In 2015 Her Majesty the Queen, appointed him as her Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London. Ken was knighted for services to Business and Philanthropy in the 2018 New Year’s Honours List.