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Steps you can take to protect yourself include asking for the business’ waste my business career. After a stint in London, the family (by now we had two
carrier licence number, don’t pay cash and ask for a receipt or Waste Transfer wonderful daughters) moved to Massachusetts where, at the company’s HQ just
Note. If they can’t provide it, or aren’t registered, then look for someone else. You outside Boston, I had the joy of running the US marketing department. I say ‘joy’
can check if someone is registered first using the Environment Agency’s public because after a career where I had been required to dance to tunes emanating
register https://environment.data.gov.uk/public-register/view/search-waste- from America, suddenly I got to write the score! Things went well and I was
carriers-brokers or, by calling the Environment Agency on 03708 506 506. promoted to head our Europe, Africa and Middle Eastern business which led to a
couple of years living in Brussels. The contrast between Wang and IBM couldn’t
To be sure a trader works in a legal, honest and fair way, then think about using a have been more stark – the pace of life at IBM was best described as ‘measured’.
Buy With Confidence Trading Standards approved trader. Search for a Buy With Whereas Wang was depicted in the definitive book about its history as “a non-
Confidence trader near you at buywithconfidence.gov.uk or by phoning the stop party occasionally interrupted by serious bouts of work!” Sadly, the
Citizens Advice consumer helpline on 0808 223 1133. company’s founder and Chairman, Dr An Wang, contracted oesophageal
cancer and, after a short illness he passed away and with no one able to come
even close to filling his enormous shoes, Wang Labs went bust.
Julia, the girls and I moved back to London where I started a company of my own
– Interregnum. This was a couple of years before the dot.com boom began and
Interregnum found a niche as a technology merchant bank, advising and
investing in young, high-potential IT businesses. It was a success and we floated
When you respond to advertisers, do please tell them you saw their on the junior stock exchange (AIM) in 2000 just as the global tech market hit its
advert in this magazine - it helps them monitor the effectiveness of peak! Although I retired from Interregnum in 2006, I continue to lead a similar
business called Restoration Partners. Today we have clients in the UK, USA, Turkey
their advert and helps us generate more advertising revenue!! and ironically, Nigeria.
I say ironically as, having had no connection with my father or his other family for
much of my life, the invitation to Chair Nigeria’s largest e-payments company
(Interswitch) has brought me into contact with my half-brother and a host of
people with the surname ‘Olisa’! Indeed, a couple of years ago, some two dozen
of us met in Lagos for an uplifting but emotional reunion (if that is the correct term
for a first meeting!) which has led to new filial relationships.
In parallel with the path through education to employment, I have set aside time
for charities and public service. My reasoning is that if I have been blessed with so
much luck – much of it the kindness of strangers – I owe to others to give back.
That being said, I find that the more I do for others, the luckier I seem to get!

My principal pro bono interest is social mobility – helping those whose tough
realities prevent their aspirations from matching their abilities. Our country is full of
talented people who need help to realise their potential – a waste for them and
for our nation. The challenges of homelessness saw my first foray into the not-for-
profit field as a Trustee and Chairman of Thames Reach one of London’s largest
homeless charities. I began around the time that a government minister was
reported as dismissing the homeless as people “over whom I tread on the way to
the opera”. It’s hard to believe but in the 1990’s there was an encampment of
homeless people living in cardboard boxes in Lincoln Inn’s Fields.
We did much to solve the problem but sadly the problem has reared its ugly head
again. I believe that the way a country helps the weak and vulnerable is a core

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