Richard Alden

Richard Alden (born 1963) is a British entrepreneur and business executive. From 1998 to 2009, he was the CEO and founding director of ONO, a telecommunications operator in Spain. In 2014, ONO was acquired by the British telecommunications company Vodafone. Until November 2015, Alden served as the chief executive officer of Wananchi Group (communications operator), providing DTH, cable internet and business services in East Africa. Alden is currently the president of parcel delivery start-up Citibox.

Career
Alden began his career as a chartered accountant at Deloitte, one of the "Big Four" accounting firms, where he became a senior manager in audit and corporate finance in 1985.

ONO
In 1998, Alden became the founding director of Spanish cable and telecom firm ONO, and was its CEO from 2000 to 2009. Alden left ONO in 2009. The company was acquired by Vodafone in 2014 for $10 billion, and the ONO brand was completely retired in early 2019.

Later career
In 2010, Alden was appointed non-executive chairman of Mirada, a Spanish TV production firm specialising in audiovisual content interaction. That same year, he was also named president of European operations of SaaS-systems provider TOA Technologies.

Alden joined Brazil's Blue Interactive as non-executive chairman in 2011. Subsequently, he worked as non-executive vice chairman of Euskaltel SA in Spain, then joined Kenyan pay TV company Wananchi Group in 2013 as CEO. He left the group in November 2015.

Since 2019, Alden has been the president of Madrid-based delivery start-up Citibox, raising €11 million.

Personal life
Alden is married and divides his time between Lisbon, Madrid and Cape Town. After the end of his contract with Wananchi, Alden was charged with murder, following the death of Kenyan national Grace Wangechi Kinyanjui on June 4, 2016 at his Nairobi home. He pleaded not guilty to the charges, and was acquitted of all charges by the Kenyan Courts on October 30, 2017, following independent ballistics evidence that proved Kinyanjui had mishandled a gun and accidentally shot herself. Alden had rushed her to the hospital, where she later died.