Page 86 - Powerlist 2020

Public Sector & Third Sector Professor Funmi Olonisakin

Professor of Security, Leadership & Development,
King’s College London; Founding Director,
African Leadership Centre

A leading British-Nigerian scholar, Professor Funmi
Olonisakin was this year appointed Vice President and
Vice Principal, International and Professor of Security,
Leadership and Development at King’s College London.
She is founder of the African Leadership Centre, based
at King’s College and the University of Nairobi. The ALC
is an academic unit and global community of scholars
whose research on peace, leadership and security issues
aims to inform and influence policy change in Africa and
worldwide.
Funmi was previously programme director of the ALC
King’s College, London, MSc programmes on Security,
Leadership and Society, and Leadership and Development,
as well as the Postgraduate Research Programme on
Leadership Studies with Reference to Security and
Development. She served as Director of the Conflict,
Security and Development Group at King’s College London
for a decade from 2003.
Trained in Political Science and War Studies, Funmi has
positioned her work as a bridge between academia and the
Dr Nira Chamberlain world of policy and practice.
Her academic research has contributed to strategic
Principal Consultant, Babcock International thinking in post-conflict contexts and in the work of
Group; Professional Mathematician regional organisations such as Economic Community of
West African States and the African Union.
She has worked in the Office of the United Nations Special
In 2019, Dr Chamberlain officially became the ‘World’s Most Representative of the Secretary-General on Children and
Interesting Mathematician’ after he was invited to and won Armed Conflict, overseeing its Africa work. There, she
a 16-person International Mathematics Communication facilitated the establishment of the National Commission for
Tournament: The Big Internet Maths Off. War Affected Children in Sierra Leone.
Dr Chamberlain is among the UK’s top 100 scientists, and
In 2016, the University of Pretoria appointed her as an
has been described by Loughborough University, where he Extra-Ordinary Professor. The Geneva Centre for Security
is a visiting fellow, as one of its “greatest scientific minds”. Policy (GCSP) also appointed her as a Distinguished Fellow
He uses his platform to take part in charitable causes. in April 2014. Funmi is a founding member of the African
He has been an avid supporter of BBC journalist Robert Security Sector Network and served as its West African
Peston’s charity Speakers for Schools, a charity made up of a Regional Co- ordinator from 2008 until 2012.
network of leading figures keen to support young people in
state schools. Dr Chamberlain is also involved in the Reach
Society, a charity which he has supported for many years
that aims to encourage, motivate and inspire black boys and
young men to own the development of their potential and
make viable transitions into adult life.
Renowned for using algorithms to solve complex problems
across engineering and industry, Dr Chamberlain is the
first black mathematician to appear in the autobiographical
directory Who’s Who. Some of his major successes include
the creation of a mathematical cost capability trade-off
that led to the commission and creation of the Royal Navy’s
£6.2billion HMS Queen Elizabeth. He has also devised a new
method of long multiplication that is widely used in schools
in Asia.
The late Professor Stephen Hawkings once challenged
the STEM community to investigate the risk of Artificial
Intelligence Takeover. Taking on this challenge in 2019, Dr
Chamberlain supervised a research project at Loughborough
University entitled, Minimising the Probability of Artificial
Intelligence Takeover. The Science magazine New Scientist
invited Dr Chamberlain to talk about his research at their
flagship conference named New Scientist Live.

86 Powerlist 2020