Ian Foxley is a retired British Army Lieutenant Colonel and the Founding Chairman of Whistleblowers UK. In a 24-year army career, he commanded a parachute squadron and 3rd (UK) Division Headquarters and Signal Regiment on operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina and appointments in Counter-Terrorism (Special Projects) and Communications and Surveillance equipment procurement in the Ministry of Defense. He won the Commandant’s Prize at the Army Staff College for a study that resulted in the revision of procedures governing general officer promotions and returned as a member of the Directing Staff instructing on Ethics, Command, and Control, Communications, and Electronic Warfare. He conceived and developed the concept of operations for Light Electronic Warfare Teams (LEWT), the leading element in tactical signals intelligence in subsequent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. His charitable work since 2005 has resulted in the construction and running of a school in Khalte, a remote village in Nepal, which traditionally supplies recruits to the Brigade of Gurkhas.

As a Procurement Project Manager, his 15 years in commercial life culminated as Programme Director for an Airbus Group subsidiary in a £1.96 billion UK Government project to modernize defense communications for the Saudi Arabian National Guard. In 2010, at significant personal and professional risk, he blew the whistle after discovering secret payments to ‘additional’ sub-contractors in the Cayman Islands. His disclosures, and absolute commitment over the past ten years, directly initiated broader investigations into Airbus Group, resulting in the largest fine (£3.6 billion) ever imposed on a commercial company under a Deferred Prosecution Agreement in the world. The direct benefit to the UK Exchequer has been over £900 million along with a significant and globally acknowledged success to UK law enforcement in the fight against corruption.

He co-founded Whistleblowers UK in 2012 as a whistleblower support group. He acted as Chairman until 2015, establishing the whistleblowing study program at the annual Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime. He has contributed and co-ordinated responses to national consultations (Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards (PCOBS), the Business Innovations and Skills Departmental Consultation on Whistleblowing, the Armed Forces (Service Complaints and Financial Assistance) Act 2015, PCAW’s Whistleblowing Commission, the Independent Review of Whistleblowing in the NHS (Freedom to Speak Up), the Home Office Review of the UK Anti-Corruption Strategy, and the Independent Review of the Financial Reporting Council. He is currently a member of the British Standards Institute (BSI) Standards Committee Panel on Whistleblowing and a research panel advisory member for an Economic and Social Research Council research project on Post-disclosure Survival