Sir Kenneth Olisa is one of many Nigerians in diaspora who rose from humble beginning to a place of enviable pride.
The Nigerian-British was born in Nottingham in 1951 to a Nigerian father and a British mother. Later on in his life, his parents divorced and his father had to return to Nigeria.
Olisa had to go through a lot during his childhood as he lived in very horrible shelters.
“I always remember we lived in this house where you went in through the front door straight into the front room.
There was an outside toilet stuck on at the back and a bath which hung on the outside wall. It doesn’t matter where you start from, it is where you want to try to get to that makes the difference,” he said.
In 2015, the Nigerian-British was named as the most powerful black person in Britain. According to the BBC, he was chosen for his work in addressing poverty and homelessness.
In emerging the most powerful, he had to defeat the likes of Sir Lenry Henry and Steve McQueen.
In the same year, he became the HM lord-lieutenant of Greater London with thirty-two boroughs under his jurisdiction.
The Nigerian is also into philanthropy and is the founding chairman of the Powerlist Foundation, an organisation that gives support to business leaders despite their backgrounds.
He is also the chair of the Shaw Trust, another organisation that gives help to young people across the UK and other places in the world.
Olisa is also very much into technology as he became a fellow of the British Computer Society in 2006.
He also held different pivotal positions with IBM.
