Nigel Oakes


Nigel John Oakes is a British businessman, and the founder and CEO of Behavioural Dynamics Institute and SCL Group, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica.

Early life

Nigel Oakes was born in July 1962, the son of Major John Waddington Oakes, who was High Sheriff of Warwickshire in 1996, and lived at Whichford House in Whichford, Warwickshire. He was educated at Eton. He claims on the SCL website to have studied psychology at University College London, but a university spokesman says they have no record of this, and Alexander Nix says Oakes attended UCL "in a private capacity."

Career

Oakes ran a mobile disco, before working in advertising for Saatchi & Saatchi.
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."
In 2000, his company Behavioural Dynamics was based in Jakarta, Indonesia, where he worked as an image consultant to President Abdurrahman Wahid, who was facing financial misconduct allegations.
In 2005, Oakes co-founded the London-based SCL Group, along with his younger brother Alexander Oakes and Alexander Nix.
In 2013, fellow Old Etonian Alexander Nix, a director of SCL for 14 years, started Cambridge Analytica with a view to targeting the American market.

Personal life

Oakes 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.