Ilyas Khan

Ilyas Khan (born 1962) is a British philanthropist and merchant banker. He is married to Mara Hotung, daughter of Eric Hotung and great-granddaughter of Sir Robert Hotung.

Early life

Ilyas Tariq Khan was raised in Lancashire (North West England). His grandparents emigrated to Britain in the 1930s. His early schooling was in the old Lancashire Pennine mill towns of Haslingden and then Accrington. Khan represented his schools in both football and rugby and left Lancashire when he gained admission to university.

When Khan was at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, he stayed at Netherhall House, an Opus Dei student hall of residence. Although he was born a Muslim, he was largely cared for in his early childhood by a grandmother who was Catholic, and whilst at Netherhall House he became interested in Catholicism and was intellectually engaged by the work of 20th century theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar and also by the writings of John Henry Newman.

Background and Career

Khan, a philanthropist, is a merchant banker by training and started his career at the London firm of J. Henry Schroder Wagg & Co. Ltd. He was also the owner of the famous English football team Accrington Stanley and is its Patron [1] and the founder and publisher of the Asia Literary Review.[2]

Since 2009 Khan has been chairman of the prominent British charity Leonard Cheshire Disability (LCD) [3]— the largest organization of its kind in the world, with a presence in over 50 countries.[4] In 2013 Khan, as Chairman of LCD, took park in the Dambuster Le Court to Lossiemoth Run.

He is a Fellow of the University of Cambridge attached to the Judge Business School.[5] His special interests include philanthropy and Wittgenstein, and he is a member of the British Wittgenstein Society. In addition to guest lecturing at the Judge Business School he is a regular public speaker on a variety of subjects and popular as an after dinner speaker.

Khan is the senior partner of Stanhill Capital Partners,[6] a merchant banking business with a focus on natural resources which he founded in 1998, during the 20 years (1989–2009) he spent living and working in Hong Kong. In business terms he was one of the founding directors of Australia-based White Energy Company, and the founder of Touchstone Gold.[7] He holds a number of advisory and non-executive board positions.

Khan is a trustee of the Christian Heritage Centre at Stonyhurst,[8] which aims to raise funds to make the collections at Stonyhurst more widely accessible. The project has the support of Lord and Lady Nicholas Windsor, Lord Guthrie, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and Lord David Alton.

In addition to his membership of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, Khan's other interests include rare and antiquarian book collecting. He has a collection of first editions of the works of Henry James, Lawrence Durrell and George Gissing.

Conversion to Roman Catholicism

By the age of 18 or 19, Khan began to question his Muslim faith. At this time he discovered the works of the Swiss theologian and philosopher Hans Urs von Balthasar and has since become well known as a keen enthusiast of this Swiss theologian and thinker. Khan began to read theology in the Netherhall library, where he studied such Christian theologians as Origen and Saint Augustine.

Khan was attracted to the practices of traditional Catholicism and an important contribution to his faith was through regular attendance, over a decade prior to his formal conversion, at St Joseph’s Church in Hong Kong, where Khan lived and worked for 20 years.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ http://accringtonstanley.co.uk/club-details/
  2. ↑ http://www.asialiteraryreview.com/people
  3. ↑ http://www.leonardcheshire.org/who-we-are/people/trustees#.UvzMixZNvww
  4. ↑ http://www.leonardcheshire.org/international#.UvzPlhZNvww
  5. ↑ http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/faculty-research/fellows-associates-a-z/ilyas-khan/
  6. ↑ http://www.stanhillcapital.com/our-team/
  7. ↑ http://www.touchstonegold.com/s/Directors.asp
  8. ↑ http://www.christianheritagecentre.com/whoweare.html

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