Dr Victor Olisa QPM


Volunteer Engagement Advisor

Victor served as a police officer for 35 years. He joined Surrey Police in 1982 straight from university, where he obtained a BSc Biochemistry (Hons) degree.

He transferred to the City of London Police in 1990 and worked in various roles that included Detective Inspector in the Fraud Squad.

In 2003 he went on secondment to the Home Office to work on Stop and Search in the Office for Criminal Justice Reform. The work involved advising Ministers on policy and chief police officers on good practice in their officers’ use of stop and search.

In 2005 he was awarded a PhD in Criminology by the London School of Economics and Political Science.

He transferred to the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) in April 2006 on promotion to Superintendent and in April 2012 he was promoted to Chief Superintendent and posted to Bexley Borough as a Borough Commander.

In 2013 he moved to Haringey as the Borough Commander, during one of the most challenging periods in the history of the Borough and the MPS.

In 2016 he took on the role of head of Diversity and Inclusion for the MPS.

In 2017, Victor was awarded the Queen’s Police Medal for distinguished police service.

In October 2017 he retired from the Police Service and spent six months as a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science and remains an associate staff there.

Since retirement, Victor has worked voluntarily as a Director for Safeguarding at Surrey County Football Association; a Trustee at Middlesex Learning Partnership. He is a visiting lecturer at Portsmouth University He works as an advisor to a civil society organisation called Civil Rights Defenders; in Sweden. He joined the Board of Governors at NACRO as a Trustee in May 2020.