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Sir Kenneth Olisa
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“Well, not everybody can be, to be fair. And so those of us who are able to be brave owe it to those who aren't to help them to look after them. So yes, those of us who can should be brave, those who aren't should expect that we will look after them rather than just trample on them. And again, there are business people, there are people in all walks of life who think if you're weak, that's your fault. That's not British.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I'd encourage people you've got an idea to go out and try and exploit it. I'd encourage people that write to a firm to apply for a job and are not even acknowledged, to ring up the chief executive of that firm and berate them. This is the time to take control of your own destiny. Hopefully we won't have another experience like this. So I view this as the spring after a dreadful pandemic winter.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What the pandemic has done, one positive thing and one negative thing. The positive thing is it's shone a big light on that and said, you know what, we don't have to do things the way we've done it forever because we can do it quite differently. The negative though is there is a general sense of gloom that has descended on everybody. I'm one of the world's most optimistic people, but even I feel it. But people that are not like me who've already found life of struggle, it's been a really big struggle because of this. Two things have to happen from that. One is we must recognize it and societally we need to help those people at that bottom of that sort of confidence stack to be able to survive and to prosper and that's really important and that's a state responsibility. It's a charitable responsibility, it's a community responsibility. But those of us who are agitating for change and think there is a way to win better, this is our time because complacency and hubris are not going to see people through the next four or five years.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Positive, not negative. So if you aren't able to access the best possible talent, you will be outdone by someone who's got better talent than you. A football team with poor players gets beaten by a football team with good players. It isn't a complicated concept. So just being complacent about what you did last year and last quarter and so on is not the way to survive. That's long been the case. You know, you and I both know really well. If you look at the FTSE 100 go back 50 years, only 40 or 50% of those companies are still on the FTSE. So it's there. So no one should ever argue it's not competitive. People do, but they're wrong. So life is competitive. We need to get our hands on talent. If you've got talent, then you should be making sure that talent gets listened to and gets supplied. And if organizations aren't interested in your talent, don't work for them or with them because they're not going to be around in the next cycle.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the context in which we operate needs to be called out for what it is. Life is really competitive. You and I compete in business. The businesses that I'm responsible for compete with other businesses. And that goes up and up and up. The nation competes with other nations. That doesn't mean we have to be at war, but we are competing. We're trying to do things better. That's how human innovation and creativity happens by that synthesis that comes from competition. So we should start with recognizing that life is a competition. I don't care whether you're in a charity as I am in many areas. We are competing with other charities to do better things for people. The whole essence of human life, of life. So we must start with the view that life is competitive. If you start with that view and then you say, how do we win in the competitive environment? The answer is easy. You get the best possible talent and you bring that talent to bear on the challenges. And again, competition is...”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Miserable place where you went to get a book and go back to your room to study, and anyone who remembers studying knows that the worst place to study is your room because all the other distractions are stored in your room. A library is a good study space. And we were able to scrape together the money to endow it. And so now for all time, certainly 350 years, the Odyssey Library is a beacon to what that place did to me. And I think giving back is it's in our national characteristic, isn't it? But again, what I'm giving back is time and talent when I have some treasure. People have given their lives to make that possible for me. I go back to the image of that bomb site. That wasn't just a playground. That was a whole tale of human misery that people sacrificed to make my opportunities become available. And I think I have a sacred duty to give back.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Paradise following this man is ramrod street military back as he click clacked with his shoes through the college and sat me down at the pace to wait for my interview. Now I tell that story because think about the other ways he could have dealt with that no eye contact well you want to go around there here's the there are a million ways he could have dealt with that but he treated me with respect I expect to be treated with respect but I was surprised at that time that is the essence of Fitzwilliam College and that story went on you don't have time to hear the next three years of my experience but that went on through three years and I gave back politically at college etc etc but one day I was able to give back big time the last building Fitzwilliam's a new relatively modern college mere 10 something years old so relatively modern college the one building that we needed was the library our old library was a horrible”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Has to be the other. So I applied to Cambridge, said nothing noble, no strategic planning there. I chose Fitzwilliam only because somebody else in my school had once been there. So I have to say zero planning. I arrive on this lovely sunny day in Cambridge. It's beautiful. I realise this is a place I want to be. And get up to Fitzwilliam for my interview. And suddenly the enormity of what I was about to do descended upon me. So I hadn't had all the normal things that one's parents would do of terrifying you, warning you, scalling you. So I step into the porter's lodge the first time in that experience feeling nervous and no longer confident. And the head porter was a man behind the counter, a war veteran, a sergeant major. And he said, good afternoon, sir. How can I help you? I don't think I'd ever been called, sir. I was 18 years old. And I said, well, I'm here for my interview. And he said, yes, sir, what's your name? And he looked down the list. He said, follow me, sir. And I remember walking through.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One of the most satisfying aspects of my life, I have to say, is I find the more I give, whether it's time, talent or treasure, the more accumulate. It is the most remarkable. It's like a fairy story, really. So Julia, my wife and I gave away most of our net wealth to endow the library at Fitzwilliam College Canary's because that experience gave me the social capital I speak about so much in oodles, in barrel loads. And that college did for me what I'm trying to do for everybody else. It gave me a realization of what I was capable of doing. It respected me in a way that I hadn't been expected to be respected because I was an OIC, a 18 or 19, etc. It's probably boring for you and for the audience, but let me get off my chest the story. I remember going for my interview at Cambridge. The only reason I applied to Cambridge is because I didn't get on with my headmaster, who was an Oxford graduate, and so therefore if you're going to apply to one or the other.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“She got a scholarship. She went to state school. She got a scholarship to a really good public school for the sixth form and then was not accepted for medical school. So her idea had been dashed. So what she then did, she got an internship working for someone in the House of Lord, a member of the House of Lords, who happened, luckily for her, Karma, happened to have somebody who was a doctor and he had someone there as a younger person who had just finished medical school. He got the younger person to coach her on her application. She reapplied to medical school. She recently qualified as a doctor, but she's also set up a charity recruiting other people from difficult backgrounds into the medical profession. She's won a Queen's Award, etc. These are examples of the talents in the country and we need to find this talent and to grow this talent.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes. The first thing is I'm really pleased with where we've come. It's quite humbling. The last one we had, which is sponsored by BT, and I sat in the auditorium and all these things are happening. And I remember this wild idea I had a decade ago. And now it is actually, it's embarrassing, it's humbling how it's grown and it's become of itself. The most satisfying thing about it is how alumni have reached out to help other alumni to do something. So the network has been working. We have some astonishing success stories. Now these young people would have done it without the elite foundation. I hope we've accelerated it, but they would have done it without. But what's more important is they are now, back to that Ben story, being role models for other people and demonstrating how the barriers can be torn down. I should choose one. It's probably unfair, so I won't name them. But we have a young lady who also grew up in Peckham. So there's a Peckham pattern emerging here.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Extension of the mentoring program, and our intention is to create a cadre of people who've gone through that process, who feel a sense of social responsibility and are going to make a difference to society. And they can cut through the barriers that exist because they can either recognize them and we've given them the techniques or they realize they don't exist and they can just carry on.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In the volume. But the real change, the system change will come through leadership. And if you have leaders in the country who've got the kinds of lived experiences that Ben's children have in Peckham that I've got from all those years ago in the 50s and the 60s and so on. And those people are running the country, then we can be pretty confident that policies will reflect that. So how do we make that happen? We need to populate the leadership elite with people with those kinds of lived experiences. And that's what the Alito Foundation stands for. And what we do is we bring in tomorrow's leaders, so our motto is sharing success with tomorrow's leaders. It's a rigorous selection, so Think Sandhurst, it's hard to get in. We start off then with a summer school, a learning academy, where we spend four days in giving them a high octane injection of social capital. My earlier point. And then there's a mentoring program thereafter, and then there's a career development program, which is...”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, it goes back actually to Ben on that journey. So, this is, in a sense, the embodiment of that. My argument is, in this country, my arguments are all about this country. I don't seek to judge other nations and other nations' values and social structures and so on. I only really talk about this country, this country being the United Kingdom, to be clear, not just England. And my argument is we need to reach into those boys and girls who might have gone to secondary modern school, or in my story of a long time ago, who feel they're excluded, that the children of Ben, who feel that this nation is not their nation, and shown that it is. There are two ways that I've identified, or they've been identified to deal with it. One is you find child and child and child, and you raise their aspirations. And that's the mentoring, that's the youth club model and so on. And that's really important. And I'm president of London Youth, which has 750 members, youth clubs across London, and we try institutionally to lift the aspirations of young people.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A train salesman, trained by IBM, I'm trained to pick up body language and tone. So I smart asked these say the bed, ah, I said, you've been having a serious problem. That sounds like you've solved it. He said, yes, I have, sir. I'm pleased to say my daughter is going to university and my son is going to art college. So I get my phone out again. This study's over now. And I said, well, that's wonderful, Ben. Well done. I said, well, what, you know, I said, obviously you work, so they know that black people work. So therefore there should never have been a problem. He said, no, but I'm their father, so they don't see me as a role model. I said, well, so as you cracked it, what was it? I'm just dying redial. And he said, I downloaded Job Biography from the Reuters website, sir, and show them what you have done. I don't think I've ever felt so small in my life.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was chilling. So I put the phone down. I said, woo, Ben. That was a bit heartfelt. Why did you put it like that? Weaved our way. And he said, sir, I have two children. He said, they are both in their late teens. We live in Peckham. They don't think that black people work. So I have had a terrible problem assuading them to think about applying for higher education.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I can never get him to call me Ken. So I get into the back of his car and off we set through Soho. I got my phone, I'm ringing somebody, got my laptop on my lap, I've got my papers beside me on the seat. We're picking our way through Soho. And I said, with the benefit of hindsight, I said patronizingly to Ben, I said, Ben, I'm on my way to a debate at Reuters to talk about whether role model is important for black families. What do you think ring ring, ring ring on the phone? And he looked up in the mirror and he said, yes, sir.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hey ho, Michael Boda, thank you. Anyway, I was on the board and I was asked by the, I think it was the African Caribbean group or something. Anyway, I was asked to chair a debate at headquarters in Canary Wharf on whether role models were important for black families. And I said, no. That's not my world. I mean, no, I'm not going to do that. I don't want to be labelled like that. They said, Ken, it's really important. You've got 100 people coming and you are the only black director. It's quite important in Black History Month that you just reluctantly say yes. And a car picked me up in my, I said yes, and eventually a car picked me up in my office on the west end, drive me to Canary Wharf. The driver of the car, whom I shall call Ben, has been a driver. He now drives me privately as well, so I've long left that board. But he, over all the years that I've known him, still calls me, sir.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It does come its own challenges, and I have to say I'm a relatively recent convert to the responsibility of being a role model. So I haven't always thought that way. For a lot of my career, I was busy getting on with my career. I cared about other people. I've been involved in charity and so on, but I didn't see myself as blazing a trail. I saw myself as getting on with my career, getting pay rises and promotions and those sorts of things. But there's a poignant story, which is, if you'll bear with me worth telling. I was on the board of Reuters at the time, which is, as you rightly said earlier, I was the first British-born black person to be on the board of a FTSE 100 company. That's a lot of adjectives. The important point is, therefore, as one of my dear friends, Michael Aboda once said, if Ken can do it, anybody can. Deeply insulting point, but absolutely right.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just the two of us. So there is no witness, there's no question of recording anything, and we can say anything we want, and it's all forgotten. Now, that's an extreme example of the point, and it shouldn't have to be like that. But if that gets two men to be comfortable in the conversation, that's the way to do it. A big crime is not to have the conversation.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So not having the knowledge doesn't mean I can't have the conversation, but I have to be sympathetic and sensitive to the other person's feelings and sensitivities. Unfortunately, the uproar that comes up every time any of these issues get raised stops people talking. Now, how do I pick talent for my organization to get competitive advantage if I can't have a dialogue with the people I'm choosing to recruit? So we have to be brave. That's not a good answer to the question, though. That's the reason why we have to have an answer to the question. The answer to the question then comes from safe spaces, finding the right way to make something happen. A very good friend of mine is one of the leads in BAME matters in the armed services. And I said to him, how do you deal with it? Must be quite difficult. He's white. So how do you deal with that? He said, well, I've got a counterpoint, a junior officer who is the internal lead. He said, and he and I have long conversations on walks together.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Fought deliberately. They're not the same thing. And what really is important is that we are able to talk about things in the country without feeling that we are going to tread on some kind of landmine because someone has decided to take offence. And if they take offence, that's their decision and they let me know, I can apologize. And if they don't accept my apology, we don't need to speak to each other. But what's happening at the moment is people are essentially being cancelled in their own work environment and find it hard to talk about these things, whatever these things are. I remember the first time I met a transgender person. I have no vocabulary to talk to that person. It's the first time I've met somebody. But that doesn't, I can't speak to her. That doesn't mean she doesn't respond to me. So we pick our way carefully around the kinds of questions that one wants to ask. And she gave me the kinds of messages she needed me to hear. And we became...”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The first big thing I would say is it's really important to talk about it because if you don't know and understand, you can't possibly act or react properly. The landmine problem though is quite a serious problem. It's a problem in our society at the moment that people have opinions. They're not based on fact. They just say things and then they dig in. As at a high table dinner back in my college not long ago and we're having an argument about this, that's the point of high table dinners but we're having an argument about this because people around the table said if you say something that I find insulting it's insulting and I said no no if I say something that is inadvertently upset you that's inadvertently upsetting if I say something which is insulting and I mean to insulting you that's insulting you're saying they're the same thing and these people said yes they are the same thing I said okay so on the underground somebody treads on my foot accidentally and apologizes somebody”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I bailief was actually the High Bailiff of Westminster, the city of Westminster, and did the things that the High Sheriff would do in most of the other boroughs and cities and towns in the country. So I'm devolved from the High Sheriff, but that was a long time ago. But I would have had lots of people to go around with truncheons to beat people for doing things wrong, collect debts and so on. Unfortunately, that has also been taken away from me. But the search of the sanctuary because it was a sacred place, people seeking sanctuary could go to the abbey and hide the widow of one of our kings, former kings, was one such person. But also criminals will go there and they don't deserve it. So the search of the sanctuary's job was to make sure that the people seeking sanctuary were legit and not, and he had a different stick, I would imagine, for dealing with those people. Sadly, that's also been taken away from me now, and I'm sort of a non-executive director on the board of Westminster Abbey, but a really important institution.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“By the dean and chapter. So the dean is the head priest, as it were, and then there are five members of the chapter. And they are in charge of it, except of course they're not ruined in charge of it because it's the queens, it's the monarchs, and so they report to the queen and to God. And that's what the abbey does. And it has two lay advisors that are members of the college and advisor Dean and chapter. The high steward, who's the Duke of Beauclu and the high bailiff, and so to the sanctuary. The high bailiff is me. A long time ago.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, so something that predates the lieutenancy is, of course, Westminster Abbey, 700 something years old. Edward the Confessor essentially made it what it was at the beginning. It's had a very interesting history through all that period of time. Obviously, it was a Catholic church, then a Protestant church, then a slightly wobbly bit, and then a Protestant church again. Coronations have been held there since time immemorial. Kings are buried there. The tomb of the unknown warrior is there because we buried someone, an unknown person who sacrificed their life for the nation and the values. We buried them amongst kings. So Westminster Abbey is an icon of a lot of the values that I've been speaking about in this conversation. It's also very important building in London. It's also very important in the context of the Commonwealth. So Westminster Abbey is iconic. There's nothing else like it in the world.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I wrote to him, he was feated on the front page of his local newspaper, and he said, when I received this letter, I cried for three hours. Now, that story is everything I care about in London, really, helping other people, somebody saying thank you, that person who's been thanked then reacting like that. I think that's what society and civilization is about.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In its most civilized extreme. So that's what I would do in an example of what I would do in normal times. Obviously in lockdown, none of that's been possible. You can't do those. Well, we've done a Zoom version of it. So that was possible. But all the other things I would do, the visits, the pinning the medals and so on, not possible. So I've substituted all of that with writing letters to people who've been pointed out to me having made a great contribution to the time of the pandemic. And one story A shopkeeper obviously of Asian heritage, I would imagine born here, but of Asian heritage who worked from early in the morning till 9.30 at night in his shop doing lockdown, will then work from 9.30 until he'd finished delivering goods to people who were isolating and couldn't come to the shop. So he would finish work at 11 o'clock midnight.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Heritage and my faith council to choose an example. I have worked with the Faith and Belief Forum, a multi faith organisation in London, to create an annual award to thank micro-faith-based charities who've gone out of their way to do something to help other people. And we have an event every year where I present awards in my splendid uniform. I give a certificate and a photo opportunity last year with 60 or 70 micro-charities that have done the most remarkable things. But I remember standing on the stage looking out at the audience waiting to come up onto the stage and they're all nervous. Them it's like a school speech day. So this isn't just getting a certificate and moving on. It's not industry awards ceremony. This is a really deep thing. The Queen's representative is going to give me a certificate in a moment. I saw a Buddhist monk, a Hindu priest and a Roman Catholic priest chatting to each other about something and I thought this is building bridges, this is London, this is society.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, let me choose a couple of examples. In normal times, I'm saying that to build the bridges in London, I think I want people to feel a sense of identity as Londoners but as individuals, a sense of connectedness, and then, as I say, connect with other communities. When I look at people, Charles, people here filming us today, and I say, what are the most important things to defining oneself? I'd say there are three. And I say there is where you come from, your heritage, what you do as a job, your occupation, if you do a job, if you volunteer, whatever it happens to be, and your faith. Now, you may not have a faith, but not having a faith is a defining characteristic. So I've set up three councils populated by distinguished members of the Lieutenancy Cadre. I have 100 deputies in London, so I have several on each of those groups. Looking at programs for each of those things. So faith, occupation.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of Greater London. And there are 98 of us across the UK, and the job that we do is to build bridges between communities and connect communities with the values that are British. Exactly what Her Majesty does. And I am so honoured to be given that opportunity. What I find is it's really easy. Communities want to be connected. People want to make things happen. And so I'm living the dream.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In King Henry VIII's time, that meant quilling riots and raising the army. Obviously, I don't do either of those things now, but I try to find ways to reach into the different communities of which there are many in London and to connect them with each other and to connect them with our core British values, which are exemplified by Her Majesty. And it involves everything from pinning medals on the chest of British Empire medal winners, for example, to thank them on behalf of the Queen for what they've done for the community, to talking to school children, to receiving Her Majesty when she comes, or any member of the royal family comes to visit capital on an official visit. It is the most remarkable world in which I now find myself. Could I have predicted this when I was playing on a bombsite in Nottingham in 1958 or something? Of course not. Did I know that this role existed as recently as a decade ago? Actually, no. I knew a law lieutenant. I didn't know there was one.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To them is a very different task from this vibrant place which is London. So to be told that that is it were the frame within which I was being asked to consider this and then to just move through the various different graceful opportunities to meet people and culminating in being appointed, it's what our country is about, it's what it stands for. Now what I do as Lord Lieutenant is to uphold the dignity of the monarch in Greater London.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I confess my first reaction was to assume this was a spoof from someone I had been at university with who had borne a grudge for 40 years and thought they would get their own back because they knew I wouldn't be able to say anything but yes and then they'd spring out of the closet and catch me out. Anyway, happily it wasn't a spoof. It was very serious and I went for what turned out to be an interview with the clerk to the Privy Council and he asked me some questions. He said to me one of the big focuses that quote around here, which is the Prime Minister and the then Prime Minister and Her Majesty the Queen, we have concluded we need to make sure our law lieutenants are more representative of the population for which they are her representative. And obviously that means something very different. He didn't say this but it means something very different in Greater London from for example a Scottish rural county where there are very few people, lots of animals, huge numbers of acres representing that group of people and representing the”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think I go back to Mr. Spencer, caviar, champagne, bring it on, except the caviar I'm not so keen. It's a profound question that, and it isn't about how I've navigated it, it's actually how welcoming these worlds have been. And this is possibly an incredible fact for most people. So imagine that one day you get a letter from the clerk, the Privy Council, saying, my job is to select people, to recommend people, not select, recommend people to Your Majesty the Queen and the Prime Minister to become Her Majesty of the Queen's representatives in a county. This is the job that goes back over 500 years, King Henry VIII created it. It is the personal representative of the monarch in each of the counties. And your name, after taking soundings, has come to my attention, and I will be interested to know whether you'll be interested in the role.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Sir Kenneth Olisa: Leading with Purpose & Representation — Part 2 | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source