Alexander Waddington Oakes (born November 1968) is a British businessman, and the co-founder and an executive of Behavioural Dynamics Institute and

SCL Group SCL Group (formerly Strategic Communication Laboratories) was a private British behavioural research and strategic communication company that came to prominence through the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal involving its subsidiaries ...

(formerly Strategic Communication Laboratories), the parent company of

Cambridge Analytica Cambridge Analytica Ltd (CA), previously known as SCL USA, was a British political consulting firm that came to prominence through the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal. It was started in 2013, as a subsidiary of the private intelli ...

and her sister

AggregateIQ AggregateIQ (AIQ) previously known as SCL Canada is a Canadian political consultancy and technology company, based in Victoria, British Columbia. History AIQ was founded in 2013 by Zack Massingham, a former university administrator and Jeff Si ...

; the companies became known to a wider audience as a result of the

Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal In the 2010s, personal data belonging to millions of Facebook users was collected without their consent by British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, predominantly to be used for political advertising. The data was collected through an app ca ...

involving the misuse of data. From the early 1990s Oakes' companies, operating under succession of names, were involved in influencing elections in

developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...

, and with the onset of the

War on Terror The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international Counterterrorism, counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campa ...

they were also contracted by the British military.

Early life

Alexander Oakes' brother Nigel John Oakes was also an executive (CEO) with SCL Group/Cambridge Analytica.

Career

In 2005, Oakes co-founded the London-based

(formerly Strategic Communication Laboratories), along with his older brother

Nigel Oakes 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 Aggregat ...

and

Alexander Nix Alexander James Ashburner Nix (born 1 May 1975) is a British businessman, the former CEO of Cambridge Analytica and a former director of the Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL) Group, a behavioural research and strategic communications ...

, described as a

polo Polo is a ball game played on horseback, a traditional field sport and one of the world's oldest known team sports. The game is played by two opposing teams with the objective of scoring using a long-handled wooden mallet to hit a small hard ...

playboy whose father Paul David Ashburner Nix also became an investor in the company. In 2013, SCL established

, a subsidiary aiming to target the American elections market and led by fellow Old Etonian Alexander Nix, a director of SCL for 14 years. The company was engaged by the

Ted Cruz Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz (; born December 22, 1970) is an American politician and attorney serving as the junior United States Senator from Texas since 2013. A member of the Republican Party, Cruz served as Solicitor General of Texas from ...

and

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

campaigns during the

2016 US presidential election The 2016 United States presidential election was the 58th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. The Republican ticket of businessman Donald Trump and Indiana governor Mike Pence defeated the Democratic ticket ...

, and reportedly also worked on dozens of other elections in the U.S. during its existence. The company went bankrupt in 2018 following the

. Cambridge Analytica claimed to use honey traps, bribery stings, and prostitutes, among other tactics, to influence more than 200 elections globally for its clients.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oakes, Nigel Living people 1962 births People educated at Eton College British company founders British chief executives Cambridge Analytica