Waheed Alli, Baron Alli

Waheed Alli, Baron Alli (born 16 November 1964) is a British media entrepreneur and politician.

He is the co-creator of the television series Survivor and has held executive positions at several television production companies including the Endemol Shine Group, Carlton Television Productions (now ITV Studios), Planet 24, and Chorion.

He served as the Chief Executive of Silvergate Media until 2022, Chairman of Koovs Plc and a director at Olga Productions.

He is a member of the House of Lords in the United Kingdom, sitting as a life peer for the Labour Party, and is described as one of only a few openly gay Muslim politicians in the world.

In British political terms, Alli is considered Asian, because both of his parents are Indo-Caribbean.

His mother, a nurse, is an Indo-Trinidadian from Trinidad and Tobago, and his estranged father, a mechanic, is an Indo-Guyanese from Guyana.

His mother was Hindu and his father Muslim; he has two brothers, one Hindu and the other Muslim.

In the mid-1980s he met Charlie Parsons, who was to become his business partner as well as his life partner.

Alli's third career, and the first in which he achieved public prominence, was in the television industry.

He and Parsons set up 24 Hour Productions, which produced The Word, "the most talked about television programme in Britain".

In 1992 they merged with Bob Geldof's Planet Pictures to form Planet 24.

Such was its success that it became one of the largest TV production companies in the country, and the main independent supplier to Channel 4.

It was responsible for genre-breaking programmes such as Big Breakfast and Survivor.

He was made a life peer as Baron Alli, of Norbury in the London Borough of Croydon, on 18 July 1998 at the age of 34, becoming the youngest and the first openly gay peer in Parliament.

He sits on the Labour benches in the House of Lords.

The BBC summarised his appointment as "the antithesis of the stereotypical 'establishment' peer – young, Asian and from the world of media and entertainment".

Alli has used his political position to argue for gay rights.

He spearheaded the campaign to repeal Section 28.

Carlton Television bought Planet 24 in March 1999 for £15 million, with Alli and Parsons prudently retaining the rights to the lucrative Survivor format.

Waheed Alli became a Carlton board director before stepping down a year later.

He owns part of Shine Limited, a media production company he co-founded in March 2001 with Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of media-magnate Rupert Murdoch.

In April 2003 Alli took over as chairman of the media rights company Chorion Ltd, which owns rights to Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie, and has offices beyond the UK in New York, Sydney, and Tokyo.

He was chairman of AIM-listed ASOS.com and a director of Olga Television, entertainer Paul O'Grady's production company.

Alli was named one of the 20 most important Asians in British media in 2005.

At the same time, he maintains ties with his Caribbean roots, both with other British-Guyanese politicians such as Valerie Amos and Trevor Phillips, and with President Bharrat Jagdeo.

Alli is one of a group of highly successful Guyanese people in Britain (Michael White of The Guardian refers to them as the "Guyanese mafia"), which includes Raj Persaud, Herman Ouseley and David Dabydeen, Cynthia Pine, Keith Waithe and Rudolph Dunbar.

Alli attended Stanley Technical College in South Norwood and left school at 16 with nine O-levels.

Alli started work as a junior researcher for a finance magazine, crediting his first success to Salem Ghayar, who hired and mentored him.

After a few years of preparing monthly reports for potential investors, he was headhunted by Save & Prosper, part of Robert Fleming & Co. Eventually he returned to his original employer, and worked his way up in the media business within Robert Maxwell's stable of publications.

He then went to the City for a second career in investment banking, through which he became wealthy.

He was part of a failed £100m bid backed by private equity firm 3i to buy Virgin Radio from SMG plc in 2005.

In March 2007 he was appointed as SMG's non-executive director.

Alli was a founder investor in Koovs, an Indian online retailer looking to replicate the success of ASOS in the subcontinent.

In August 2011, he stepped down from the chairmanship of Chorion and sold half his stake in ASOS.com to start a new company called Silvergate Media.

The company was set up in 2012, intending to raise £22m with a stock market listing on London's AIM.

In December 2019 the company went into administration after funding could not be found.

The administration of Koovs has now been extended due to shareholders' concerns, FRP Advisory state this in their most recent update to the market.

Alli joined the Labour Party at the persuasion of his neighbour Emily Thornberry, to whom he remains close.

He is also close to Anji Hunter, Director of Government Relations in Tony Blair's first government.

Prime Minister Blair used him for years as a means to help him reach out to a younger generation (aka "yoof culture"), and as such he is considered one of "Tony's Cronies".