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 with Oakes leaving Indonesia in 2000 amidst a controversy over his work for the Indonesian government. Oakes first became known as the boyfriend of Lady Helen Windsor in the 1980s.[1]
Early life
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]