The Board Intelligence blog

About the author

A Nottingham native, Ken is an IT businessman and philanthropist with a 40 year international career at IBM, Wang and Interregnum (which he founded and floated in 2000). A Past Master of the Information Technologists’ Livery Company, he is known in the Square Mile as an outspoken proponent of good corporate governance. He chairs leading governance advisors, Independent Audit, and his expression - “More Soviet than City” - describing his treatment as a director of ENRC is rarely out of the business pages. Ken has advised or invested in some of the UK’s more interesting computer technology entrepreneurs. A diversity pioneer and enthusiastic mentor, he became the first British born black FTSE100 Director when he joined Reuters (now Thomson Reuters) in 2004 and regularly appears in the Powerlist most influential black people in the UK. True to his family motto – “Do Well. Do Good.” he is committed to public service. This has involved serving on the boards of an NHS Trust, the Peabody Trust, the Government’s Women’s Enterprise Taskforce and as an original Postal Services Commissioner and BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT. A current focus is the professionalization of company direction as an NED of the Institute of Directors. He helped end the MPs’ expenses scandal as an inaugural member of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA). His principal cause is social inclusion and in that capacity he chairs the Powerlist Foundation, mission -“sharing success with tomorrow’s leaders”, London homeless charity, Thames Reach, which is dedicated to ending rough sleeping in our Capital and for which he was awarded his OBE in 2010 and is the Chairman of the Shaw Trust. He is an 1869 Benefactor Fellow of his alma mater, Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, home to the recently completed Olisa Library. In May 2015 HM the Queen appointed him Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London. He was knighted in the 2018 New Year's Honours List.

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