Mr Olisa, 52, has over thirty years of business experience particularly within the technology arena. He began his career at IBM in the UK in a number of systems engineering, sales and marketing roles.

In 1981 he joined Wang Laboratories Inc. Following a period as Marketing Director for Europe, Vice President of US Marketing and then Worldwide Marketing, Ken was appointed Senior Vice President and General Manager of Wang Europe, Africa and the Middle East. In this role he was responsible for the sales, marketing, support, service and administration activities within 11 Wang subsidiaries and 92 distributors.

Mr Olisa is Chairman of Interregnum plc (AIM: ITR), a technology merchant bank which he founded in 1992. He also serves on the board of several of the innovative companies in which Interregnum has an interest, including Metapraxis, Adaptive Inc, BioWisdom, Open Text Corporation (NASDAQ:OTEX) and Yospace Technologies Ltd. Other commitments include being a member of the Postal Services Commission.

Sir Christopher Hogg, Reuters out-going Chairman, said, "I welcome Ken to the Reuters board. With his wealth of business experience, international technology marketing and sales know how, and his entrepreneurial spirit, I have no doubt that he will make a valuable contribution."

Mr Olisa is involved with a number of charities and philanthropic organisations: he is Chairman of Thames Reach Bondway, a charity working to resettle London's homeless; a Governor of the Peabody Trust, a London social landlord; and a member of the Court of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists.

He has a MA in Natural, Social, Political and Management Sciences from Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.