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Alexander Nix

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Alexander Nix
Alexander Nix at Web Summit 2017 in Lisbon
Born
Alexander James Ashburner Nix

(1975-05-01) 1 May 1975 (age 49)
NationalityUnited Kingdom
Alma materEton College
University of Manchester
Occupation(s)Director, Emerdata
Director, SCL Group
CEO, Cambridge Analytica (currently suspended)

Alexander James Ashburner Nix is the current, but suspended, CEO of Cambridge Analytica[1] and a director of the Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL) Group,[2] a behavioural research and strategic communications consultancy, leading its elections division (SCL Elections). Cambridge Analytica helped Leave.EU with its Brexit campaign, according to both Leave.EU and Cambridge Analytica staff. The company was also engaged by the Ted Cruz and Donald Trump campaigns during the 2016 US presidential election.

Both in the UK and the US campaigns, Cambridge Analytica used private information about more than 50 million Facebook users harvested from their profiles without their permission, according to reporting by the New York Times.[3] On 20 March 2018, Nix was suspended from Cambridge Analytica after undercover video footage showed him claiming his company was using honey traps, bribery stings, and prostitutes, among other tactics, to influence more than 200 elections globally for his clients.[4][5][6]

Biography

Early life

Alexander Nix was born on 1 May 1975.[7] He grew up in Notting Hill, an affluent district in West London, attended fee-paying Eton College, and studied History of Art at Manchester University. He later worked as a financial analyst with Baring Securities in Mexico[8] for Robert Fraser & Partners LLP, a tax and corporate finance firm.[9] In 2003, Nix left finance to join the SCL Group.

Cambridge Analytica

In 2013, Nix set up Cambridge Analytica as an offshoot of the SCL Group, to target voters in "more than 40 political campaigns in the US, Caribbean, South America, Europe, Africa and Asia".[9] In the United States, it was involved in the 2014 midterm elections and the 2016 presidential primaries and election, during which it received funding from the Mercer family. Nix's firm supported both the Ted Cruz and Donald Trump campaigns for the US presidency by using "psychographic" profiles of voters built on data harvested from Facebook.[3][10]

Before the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016, Nix's firm was involved in supporting Leave.EU with its Brexit campaign, according to both Arron Banks of Leave.EU, former Cambridge Analytica employee Christopher Wylie, Cambridge Analytica's business development director Brittany Kaiser, and Leave.EU’s communications director Andy Wigmore.[11][12][13] However, according to Wigmore, the work for Leave.EU was done pro bono, without any money changing hand: “Because Nigel [Farage] is a good friend of the Mercers. And Robert Mercer introduced them to us. He said, ‘Here’s this company we think may be useful to you.’ What they were trying to do in the US and what we were trying to do had massive parallels. We shared a lot of information. Why wouldn’t you?” Behind Trump’s campaign and Cambridge Analytica, he said, were “the same people. It’s the same family.”[12]

In February 2018, Nix told the British parliament's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee that his company had not received data from Facebook;[13] following further media reports the committee's chairman, Damian Collins, said "We will be contacting Alexander Nix next week asking him to explain his comments."[14] Nix denies deliberately misleading the parliamentary Select Committee.[15]

In March 2018, The Observer reported that Nix talked "unguardedly about the company's practices" when he was secretly filmed by Channel 4 News reporters posing as prospective clients and that Cambridge Analytica was trying to stop the broadcast of the resulting programme.[14] Nix offered "beautiful Ukrainian girls" to discredit political opponents in Sri Lanka.[16] The secret filming was screened on 19 March as part of a 30-minute segment, with a follow-up scheduled for the next day, focusing on its involvement in the Trump campaign. The conversation appears to portray Nix including entrapment and bribery as potential Cambridge Analytica services.[17]

On 20 March 2018, Nix was suspended from Cambridge Analytica.[5]

Emerdata

On 23 January 2018, Nix was appointed director of Emerdata Ltd.,[18] a new company incorporated in August 2017, along with SCL chairman Julian Wheatland and Cambridge Analytica chief data officer Alexander Tayler. On 16 March 2018, Rebekah and Jennifer Mercer were also appointed directors,[18] members of the Mercer family which backed Cambridge Analytica financially (by at least $15 million, according to the New York Times).[3] Another director of Emerdata is Chinese businessman Johnson Chun Shun Ko, deputy chairman and executive director[19] of Frontier Services Group, a private security firm which mostly operates in Africa and is chaired by US businessman and strong Trump supporter Erik Prince, who is best known for founding private military group Blackwater USA and being the brother of US education secretary Betsy DeVos.[20]

Other

At the end of March 2018, according to Companies House, Nix was a company director on the board of ten UK companies incorporated at Companies House:

Firecrest Technologies Limited; Emerdata Limited; SLC Group Limited; SCL Analytics Limited; Cambridge Analytica(UK) Limited; SCL Digital Limited; SCL Sovereign Limited; SCL Commercial Limited; SCL Social Limited; SCL Elections Limited.[21]

References

  1. ^ Butcher, Mike. "Cambridge Analytica CEO talks to TechCrunch about Trump, Hillary and the future". Techcrunch. Oath Tech Network. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  2. ^ "SCL GROUP LIMITED Companies House data". Company Check. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
  3. ^ a b c Rosenberg, Matthew (17 March 2018). "How Trump Consultants Exploited the Facebook Data of Millions". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
  4. ^ "Cambridge Analytica CEO 'admits to dirty tricks'". The Week. 20 March 2018. Archived from the original on 20 March 2018. Retrieved 20 March 2018. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  5. ^ a b "Cambridge Analytica: Facebook row firm boss suspended". BBC News. 20 March 2018. Retrieved 20 March 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |work= (help)
  6. ^ Gilbert, David. "Cambridge Analytica Bragged About Using Fake News, Bribes, And Ukranian Hookers to Influence Elections". Vice News. Retrieved 25 March 2018.
  7. ^ Dwilson, Stephanie Dube (18 March 2018). "Alexander Nix: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know". Heavy.com. Retrieved 20 March 2018. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |website= (help)
  8. ^ "Executive Profile: Alexander Nix BA: Director, SCL Group Limited". Bloomberg L.P. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  9. ^ a b "Alexander Nix Profile". Campaign. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  10. ^ Auchard, Eric (19 March 2018). "May very concerned by Facebook data abuse reports". Reuters. Retrieved 20 March 2018.
  11. ^ Business Insider 21 March 2018: "All the times Cambridge Analytica gave brazenly contradictory accounts of its murky work on Brexit" Linked 2018-03-22
  12. ^ a b The Observer, 26 February 2018: Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media Linked 2018-03-22
  13. ^ a b Cadwalladr, Carole (17 March 2018). "The Cambridge Analytica Files : 'I made Steve Bannon's psychological warfare tool': meet the data war whistleblower". The Observer. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  14. ^ a b Cadwalladr, Carole; Graham-Harrison, Emma (19 March 2018). "Facebook and Cambridge Analytica face mounting pressure over data scandal". The Observer. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  15. ^ Rajan, Amol (19 March 2018). "Data and the threat to democracy". BBC News. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  16. ^ "Cambridge Analytica sends 'girls' to entrap politicians". The Times. 20 March 2018.
  17. ^ Rosenberg, Matthew (19 March 2018). "Cambridge Analytica, Trump-Tied Political Firm, Offered to Entrap Politicians". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 20 March 2018.
  18. ^ a b "EMERDATA LIMITED Filing History". Companies House. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
  19. ^ Bloomberg, Executive Profile of Chun Shun Ko (cached) Linked 2018-03-22
  20. ^ Business Insider, Mar. 21, 2018: "The power players behind Cambridge Analytica have set up a mysterious new data company" Linked 2018-03-22
  21. ^ "Alexander Nix". Companies House. Retrieved 26 March 2018.
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