Nigel John Oakes (born July 1962) is a British businessman, and the founder and CEO of Behavioural Dynamics Institute and SCL Group (formerly Strategic Communication Laboratories), the parent company of Cambridge Analytica and her sister AggregateIQ; the companies became known to a wider audience as a result of the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal involving the misuse of data. From the early 1990s, Oakes' companies, operating under succession of names, were involved in influencing elections in developing countries, and with the onset of the War on Terror they were also contracted by the British military. Oakes first became known as the boyfriend of Lady Helen Windsor in the 1980s.[1]
Nigel Oakes | |
|---|---|
| Born | Nigel John Oakes July 1962 (age 62) |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | Eton |
| Occupation | Businessman |
| Title | Founder and CEO of SCL Group |
| Parent | Major John Waddington Oakes |
| Relatives | Alexander Waddington Oakes |
Early life
edit
Nigel Oakes was born in July 1962, the son of Major John Waddington Oakes, who was High Sheriff of Warwickshire in 1996. His father bought Whichford House in Whichford, Warwickshire in the 1980s.[2][3][4] His great-grandfather was the Reverend Beilby Porteus Oakes, a descendant of the bishop Beilby Porteus. The family belonged to the English landed gentry.[5] He attended Eton College.[6] He claimed on the now defunct SCL website to have studied psychology at University College London (UCL), but a university spokesman said they have no record of this, and Alexander Nix (a director of SCL) said Oakes attended UCL "in a private capacity."[7][8]
Nigel Oakes' brother Alexander Waddington Oakes was also an executive with SCL Group/Cambridge Analytica.[9]
Career
editOakes ran a mobile disco, before working in advertising for Saatchi & Saatchi.[7][10]
In 1992, Oakes talked to a trade journal about his work: "We use the same techniques as Aristotle and Hitler ... We appeal to people on an emotional level to get them to agree on a functional level."[11]
In 2000, his company Behavioural Dynamics Institute was based in Jakarta, Indonesia, where he worked as an image consultant to President Abdurrahman Wahid, who was facing financial misconduct allegations.[6][11]
In 2005, Oakes co-founded the London-based SCL Group (formerly Strategic Communication Laboratories), along with his younger brother Alexander Oakes and Alexander Nix, described as a polo playboy whose father Paul David Ashburner Nix also became an investor in the company.[1][12]
In 2013, SCL established Cambridge Analytica, a subsidiary aiming to target the American elections market and led by fellow Old Etonian Alexander Nix, a director of SCL for 14 years.[8] The company was engaged by the Ted Cruz and Donald Trump campaigns during the 2016 US presidential election, and reportedly also worked on dozens of other elections in the U.S. during its existence. The company went bankrupt in 2018 following the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal.[13] Cambridge Analytica claimed to use honey traps, bribery stings, and prostitutes, among other tactics, to influence more than 200 elections globally for its clients.[14][15]
Personal life
editOakes was the second "serious boyfriend" of Lady Helen Windsor, and "appalled the Queen" after she smuggled him into her parents' grace-and-favour home, York House, St James's Palace.[7][6][16][17]
References
edit- ^ a b Brown, David (21 March 2018). "SCL Group's founders were connected to royalty, the rich and powerful". Retrieved 21 March 2018 – via www.thetimes.co.uk.
- ^ Watt, Holly; Osborne, Hilary (21 March 2018). "Tory donors among investors in Cambridge Analytica parent firm". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 March 2018.
- ^ "About Us - Whichford House". www.whichfordhouse.co.uk. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
- ^ "Nigel John OAKES - Personal Appointments (free information from Companies House)". beta.companieshouse.gov.uk. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
- ^ Pine, L. G. (1939). Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry (16 ed.). p. 1701.
- ^ a b c "Old Etonian smoothie fails to buff Indonesian leader's image". independent.co.uk. 6 August 2000. Archived from the original on 20 June 2022. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
- ^ a b c Doward, Jamie (4 March 2017). "Did Cambridge Analytica influence the Brexit vote and the US election?". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
- ^ a b "Trump's Data Gurus Leave a Long Trail of Subterfuge and Dubious Dealing". Bloomberg. 23 March 2017. Retrieved 21 March 2018 – via www.bloomberg.com.
- ^ Bureau, NH Political (22 March 2018). "Growing evidence of JD(U), BJP links with Cambridge Analytica". National Herald.
{{cite web}}:|last=has generic name (help) - ^ Irani, Delshad (29 March 2017). "Why is ex-adman Nigel Oakes being hailed as the '007' of big data?". The Economic Times. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
- ^ a b "A Data Team Tied To Trump's Campaign Has A Pretty Unusual Past". buzzfeed.com. 21 January 2017. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
- ^ "Rollo Gabb not linked to Cambridge Analytica case". 23 March 2018.
- ^ Confessore, Nicholas; Rosenberg, Matthew (2 May 2018). "Cambridge Analytica to File for Bankruptcy After Misuse of Facebook Data (Published 2018)". The New York Times – via NYTimes.com.
- ^ "Cambridge Analytica CEO 'admits to dirty tricks'". The Week. 20 March 2018. Archived from the original on 20 March 2018. Retrieved 20 March 2018.
- ^ "Cambridge Analytica: Facebook row firm boss suspended". BBC News. 20 March 2018. Archived from the original on 28 June 2018. Retrieved 20 March 2018.
- ^ "why so wild about harry?". scotsman.com. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
- ^ "The Londoner: The naked truth of Mary Beard at college". standard.co.uk. 20 March 2018. Retrieved 21 March 2018.