John Lazar is a software engineer and entrepreneur with experience of building and managing successful global businesses. He is Chair of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, which aims to help young people realise their full potential through the power of computing and digital technologies. He is also co-founder, General Partner, and a Limited Partner at Enza Capital, which backs founders and teams using technology to solve large and meaningful problems across Africa.
He sits on the boards of multiple African technology companies. He previously served as the Chair of What3words and was awarded a CBE for services to engineering in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2016.
John joined Metaswitch Networks in 1987 as a software engineer and became CEO in 2009 and then Chairman in 2015, as the company established its leadership in communications software. He stepped down in 2016 and Metaswitch was acquired by Microsoft in 2020.
John was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2011 and chaired the Academy’s Enterprise Committee, which supports startups and scaleups across the UK and globally through the Enterprise Hub. He has also been a member of the Academy’s Education and Skills Committee and played an active role in developing the programme of study for England’s school Computer Science curriculum.
For the past seven years, John has been a judge and mentor for the Academy’s Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation, which trains and backs early-stage African engineering companies. He has also spent many years working on tech-related non-profit initiatives in Africa, especially building “digital blacksmiths” and maker labs. He has been an active angel investor and technology start-up mentor in the UK and Africa, with more than 40 individual pre-seed/seed investments.
He graduated from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar with an MSc in Computation and a DPhil in History, following an undergraduate degree in Computer Science at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
He was elected as President of the Royal Academy of Engineering at its 48th AGM on 17 September 2024.
The history of the Royal Academy of Engineering
The Royal Academy of Engineering was founded as The Fellowship of Engineering in 1976. Explore our history and heritage spanning across nearly 50 years of promoting engineering excellence.