Ian Foxley

Ian is a Veteran with 24 years’ service in the British Army, where he worked in counter-terrorism and commanded an arctic warfare troop, a parachute squadron and a communications regiment as part of the United Nations (UN) and NATO Peacekeeping mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He then worked for 14 years in the telecommunications industry including construction of two of the national fibre optic networks for broadband across the UK. In 2010 as Programme Director of a £1.96billion UK/Saudi government defence procurement contract in GPT Special Project Management Limited, an Airbus subsidiary, he uncovered corrupt payments to the Cayman Islands and blew the whistle to the Serious Fraud Office.  The resulting prosecution impacted the whole of the Airbus Group, leading to a Euro3.6 billion fine and the replacement of the whole Group Board. In March 2026, he brought a civil claim against UK Government Departments and Airbus citing their complicity to corruption and joint enterprise.

Ian received a BSc (Hons) in Applied Science at the Royal Military College of Science  (1981), an MA in Applied Human Rights (2018) and his PhD in Politics (2023) at the University of York, researching the root causes of why people do not speak up. 

He founded Parrhesia Inc (2021 – present), a whistleblowing research and support organisation focused on providing organisations and policymakers with evidence and advice on whistleblower processes and procedures for the better protection of the organisation and the individual. 

He was a Panel Member at the British Standards Institute for the formulation of an international standard for whistleblowing management systems (ISO 37002). He is a member of the International Whistleblowing Research Network and established the Whistleblower Programme at the Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime (CISOEC). His vision is for an independent body for the protection and support of whistleblowers, and a funded Whistleblowing Covenant Programme to support and rehabilitate those who speak up about wrongdoing with a unified network to ensure enduring protection across the international environment.