Thursday 14 December 2023 6:00 am | Updated: Tuesday 14 January 2025 4:36 pm

Square Mile and Me: Lord-Lieutenant Ken Olisa on Saturday jobs and City faux pas

Each week we ask a City figure to take a trip down memory lane. Today we speak to Ken Olisa, Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London and chairman of BusinessLDN.

What was your first job?
Car washing on a Saturday.

What was your first role in the City?
IBM Systems engineer in their Basinghall Street office.

When did you know you wanted to build a career in finance?
When I chose coding as the 6th form option in preference to cross-country running. (Indoors, dry, coffee and a new skill versus outdoors, cold, wet and communal showers.)

What’s one thing you love about the City?
As a Freeman, Past Master of a Livery Company (Information Technologists), technology merchant banker and failed Aldermanic candidate I feel an integral part of the City.

And one thing you would change?
Persuade a wider section of the population’s talent that working in the City is for them and persuading City employers to find, hire and develop them. BusinessLDN is helping to drive change on boosting diversity and inclusion across London businesses, including encouraging more firms to pay the London living wage if they can afford to do so.

What’s your most memorable interview?
When I applied for an IBM Scholarship while at Cambridge and had misread the T&C only realising halfway through that it was worth not £450 but £770 (a lot of money in those days!) and managed to turn a lacklustre performance into a successful one!

And any City faux pas?
Wearing a coloured tie to a banquet at The Mansion House

What’s been your proudest moment?
Apart from family, opening of the Olisa Library at my alma mater – Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge – endowed by my wife Julia and me.

And who do you look up to?
As Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London and High Sheriff of Westminster Abbey – God and The King.

Are you optimistic for the year ahead?
Always.

We’re going for lunch, and you’re picking – where are we going?
The Walbrook Club

And if we’re grabbing a drink after work?
The nearest bar.

Where’s home during the week?
Hampton Wick.

And where might we find you at the weekend?
Briantspuddle, Dorset.

You’ve got a well-deserved two weeks off. Where are you going?
Skiing if it’s cold. Otherwise sitting by the banks of the River Piddle in our Briantspuddle garden.