Ali Miraj

Ali Miraj is a financier, broadcaster, social entrepreneur and DJ. He is a Managing Director and Global Lead of Infrastructure Sponsor Coverage at ING is responsible for managing global relationships for the bank with key infrastructure equity funds, having initially qualified as a Chartered Accountant. He has commentated widely on current affairs for several years. He presents weekly radio shows on LBC, the largest commercial talk radio station in the UK, and appears regularly on multiple media outlets including Sky News. He has written for all the major broadsheet newspapers. He was the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for the marginal seat of Watford at the 2005 General Election and prior to that he contested the 2001 General Election in Aberavon, South Wales. He served as a Councillor (London Borough of Hillingdon) from 1998-2002 having been elected at the age of 23. He was as an adviser to the Conservative Foreign Affairs Team from 2001-2003 and a Board Member of both the Conservative Party’s Policy Commissions on Quality of Life and International and National Security (2005-2007). In 2012, he founded the Contrarian Prize to recognise British public figures that demonstrate independence, courage and sacrifice www.contrarianprize.com He is a trained House music DJ and has played at leading venues around the world including the iconic Hotel Costes in Paris and Tausend Berlin. He has had multiple residencies and founded “Decks and the City” a monthly night in Shoreditch for City professionals who play House music. He is currently national Vice President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England and Junior Warden of the Worshipful Company of International Bankers and a Freeman of the City of London. Educated at Haberdashers Aske’s School for Boys, Elstree, he went on to the London School of Economics where he read BSc Econ (International Relations) and MSc Politics of the World Economy and Harvard where he read Political Philosophy.