BORN AND RAISED IN SOUTH AFRICA, KEN COSTA STUDIED law and philosophy at college in Johannesburg, where he was actively involved in the student protest movement against racial segregation in universities. In 1974 he moved to England to study law and theology at Cambridge University before joining the investment bank SG Warburg in the City of London. Over the next forty years, Ken continued to work in investment banking, becoming chairman of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa for UBS Investment Bank and later chairman of Lazard International. During this time Ken worked in mergers and acquisitions, advising global corporations on their international strategies, and in 2010 he played a key role in the sale of Harrods—perhaps the most famous department store in the world. In 2016, he was nominated as one of the City of London’s top deal advisors of the last twenty years. His first book, God at Work, drew on this experience to explore what it means to live every day with purpose in the workplace. Ken also went on to make a series of short films called God at Work Conversations, which can be found at www.godatwork.org.uk/conversations.
Besides his commercial work, Ken has spent much of his adult life involved in the leadership of Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB), the largest Anglican church in the United Kingdom, where he preaches regularly. He is dean of the HTB Leadership College London, which trains those in their twenties and thirties to be distinctive Christian leaders in their workplaces, and is also chairman of Alpha International—an evangelistic course born out of HTB, which has so far taught the basics of Christianity to an estimated 27 million people worldwide. He is chairman of Worship Central, a movement promoting worship events and courses across the globe. It was also at Cambridge that Ken got to know the current archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, whose reconciliation and evangelism work he now supports as chairman of the Lambeth Trust.
Given his professional experience, Ken has regularly been asked to speak on financial, ethical, and Christian issues at conferences and churches around the world. As emeritus professor of commerce at Gresham College London, he lectured on finance and ethics in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, and in 2011 he led the London Connection—an initiative seeking to encourage dialogue between the financiers in the City of London and the Occupy protesters who took up residence outside St Paul’s Cathedral—at the request of the bishop of London. He was also a trustee of the Nelson Mandela UK Children’s Fund for more than ten years, is currently fundraising patron for Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, and was an advisory board member of the London Symphony Orchestra.
Ken is married to Dr. Fiona Costa, a classical musician and research fellow at the University of Roehampton, and they have four adult children.