Connect Support Services

Early life and education

Adam Afriyie was born on 4 August 1965 in Wimbledon, London, the son of a Ghanaian father and English mother. He grew up on a council estate in Peckham, attending the local Oliver Goldsmith Primary School. He was educated at Addey and Stanhope School in New Cross, before earning a bachelor's degree in agricultural economics from Wye College in 1987.

Afriyie has seven half-siblings and one brother. He said of his upbringing: "I never knew my father until I was much older and my mother, Gwen, brought us up alone. She was my rock, the gel at the centre of my life, although her tumultuous relationships with different men made for a constant state of flux at the boundaries of our family."

Business career

Afriyie was chairman of Connect Support Services, an IT support company he set up in 1993. The company went into liquidation in 2017 and was sold by administrators. The company owed £1.8 million in taxes to HMRC. He owned two thirds of DeHavilland, a political monitoring company, which was sold to publishers Emap in 2005 for £18 million. He was also a regional finalist in the 2003 Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards.

A member of the Conservative Party since 1990, Afriyie in 1999 worked for Jeffrey Archer on his unsuccessful campaign to be the first directly elected mayor of London.

Afriyie was chairman of Connect Support Services, an IT support company he set up in 1993. The company went into liquidation in 2017 and was sold by administrators. The company owed £1.8 million in taxes to HMRC. He owned two thirds of DeHavilland, a political monitoring company, which was sold to publishers Emap in 2005 for £18 million. He was also a regional finalist in the 2003 Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards.

A member of the Conservative Party since 1990, Afriyie in 1999 worked for Jeffrey Archer on his unsuccessful campaign to be the first directly elected mayor of London.

He was a governor of the Museum of London, appointed by Tony Blair, a trustee of the Museum in Docklands (part of the Museum of London) and, from 2003 to 2005, a director of Policy Exchange, a centre right think tank.

Afriyie was a stakeholder of Axonn Media (originally called Adfero, an asset remaining from the sale of DeHavilland), a content marketing business which produces content for clients. The company incorporated brands such as Content Plus, NewsReach, DirectNews and ReelContent. Axonn turned over £9.4m in 2011, and made a pre tax profit of £1.3m. Afriyie was the largest shareholder of the firm, and he and his fellow directors split dividends of £2.2m in 2010 and 2011. The company went into liquidation in 2019, owing HMRC taxes of £492,000. Axonn was sold for £39,000, its annual turnover having fallen by over £7 million since 2013.