Oliver Tress

Oliver James Mark Tress (born May 1967) is a British businessman and the founder and head of the UK retail chain Oliver Bonas. He opened the first Oliver Bonas store in London in 1993.

Early life

Tress was born in Oxfordshire, in May 1967, the son of a banker father and housewife mother. He was educated at Marlborough College, Wiltshire, after which he took a degree in anthropology at Durham University, graduating in 1989 as a member of Hatfield College.

Career

Tress opened the first Oliver Bonas store on London's Fulham Road in 1993 selling handbags and jewellery from Hong Kong, where his parents lived, and products he sourced from trade shows. Tress used £3,000 of his savings to set up the first shop, using £1,500 of it for the rent.

In 2011, during the London riots, he was "badly beaten by looters" outside an Oliver Bonas store on Battersea's Northcote Road, and received hospital treatment for head injuries.

In 2019, Tress obtained a £15m revolving credit facility from HSBC, which allowed Oliver Bonas to open eight more stores. By 2023 there were 83 Oliver Bonas stores in the UK.

Personal life

Tress has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, otherwise known as ADHD.

In 2009, he married Gina Coladangelo. Tress and Coladangelo have three children. In 2015, they moved from Clapham Junction to a five-bedroom Edwardian house in Wandsworth, London with a live-in nanny. She was a director and major stakeholder for the PR and lobbying firm Luther Pendragon, and the marketing and communications director for Oliver Bonas. Later she became a non-executive director at the Department of Health and Social Care, an aide to the then Secretary for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock. In June 2021, Hancock resigned after images were released showing him kissing and embracing Coladangelo in his Whitehall office breaking the then COVID-19 social distancing restrictions. It was later reported that they had separated from their spouses to form a relationship.

References

External links

• Oliver Tress: Who is Gina Coladangelo's husband? - report by the Evening Standard, published 29 June 2021