The Hon. ''The Honourable'' (Commonwealth English) or ''The Honorable'' (American English; see spelling differences) (abbreviation: ''Hon.'', ''Hon'ble'', or variations) is an honorific style that is used as a prefix before the names or titles of cert ...

Thomas James Robert Borwick (born 1987), is a British SEO

strategist A strategist is a person with responsibility for the formulation and implementation of a strategy. Strategy generally involves setting goals, determining actions to achieve the goals, and mobilizing resources to execute the actions. A strategy ...

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

and digital influencer. A member of the Conservative Party, Borwick provided tech support for the successful

Vote Leave Vote Leave was a campaigning organisation that supported a "Leave" vote in the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum. On 13 April 2016 it was designated by the Electoral Commission as the official campaign in favour of leavi ...

campaign.

Life

The second son of Lord and Lady Borwick, his father (Jamie) sits in the

House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...

and his mother (Victoria), was an MP (2015–17). Borwick read economics and finance at the University of Richmond, Virginia, graduating BA, BS,www.alumni.richmond.edu
/ref> before pursuing further studies at

London Business School London Business School (LBS) is a business school and a constituent college of the federal University of London. LBS was founded in 1964 and awards post-graduate degrees (Master's degree, Master's degrees in management and finance, Master of B ...

(

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular a ...

). He first joined Killik & Co, before founding his own company, Kanto Systems, in 2012. Borwick worked for

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 intell ...

and

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 ...

, and was chief technology officer for

before creating the campaigning group 3rd Party Ltd for influencing the outcome of the

2019 United Kingdom general election The 2019 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 12 December 2019, with 47,074,800 registered voters entitled to vote to elect 650 Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons of the Un ...

. Borwick ran targeted Facebook advertisements calling for the electorate to vote

Green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a com ...

, possibly to divide the anti-Conservative vote. However, given that these ads were run both in swing (Plymouth) and non-swing constituencies (Oxford), the campaign may also have been intended for harvesting data on Green Party supporters. Borwick has also operated numerous other

tech companies A technology company (or tech company) is a company that focuses primarily on the manufacturing, support, research and development of—most commonly computing, telecommunication and consumer electronics–based—technology-intensive products and ...

, including Disruptive Communications Ltd, which he started in partnership with

Douglas Carswell John Douglas Wilson Carswell (born 3 May 1971) is a British former politician who served as a Member of Parliament from 2005 to 2017, co-founded Vote Leave, and since 2021 also serves as president and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public ...

, former

UKIP The UK Independence Party (UKIP, ) is a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), member ...

MP; and Voter Consultancy Ltd, whose micro-targeting of

Facebook Ads Meta Platforms, Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Menlo Park, California. Meta owns and operates several prominent social media platforms and communication services, including Facebook, Instagram, Threads ...

allegedly precipitated unforeseen death threats against

Remainer In the wake of the referendum held in the United Kingdom on 23 June 2016, many new pieces of Brexit-related jargon entered popular use.Al Jazeera. (2018)''Brexit jargon: From backstop to no deal, 17 key terms explained'' (Al Jazeera) Retrieved 2 ...

MPs and led to a subsequent investigation by the

Information Commissioner's Office The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is a non-departmental public body which reports directly to the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is sponsored by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. It is the independent regu ...

. Assaulted by three women at a London

KFC KFC Corporation, doing business as KFC (an abbreviation of Kentucky Fried Chicken), is an American fast food restaurant chain specializing in fried chicken and chicken sandwiches. Headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, it is the world's se ...

outlet in 2015, Borwick was critical of KFC's

door security The term door security or door security gate may refer to any of a range of measures used to strengthen doors against door breaching, ram-raiding and lock picking, and prevent crimes such as burglary and home invasions. Door security is used in ...

, who could assist only by escorting him and his girlfriend from the premises.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Borwick, Thomas Living people 1987 births Younger sons of barons University of Richmond alumni Alumni of London Business School Social media influencers Conservatism in the United Kingdom Data scientists Businesspeople in information technology British technology chief executives British chief technology officers Search engine optimization consultants

Life

See also

References