Philip Leakey was educated at Leighton Park School

Leighton Park School

Leighton Park School is a co-educational Quaker independent school for both day and boarding pupils. It is situated in the large town of Reading in Berkshire, in South East England...

 and is a former member of the Kenyan Parliament

National Assembly of Kenya

The unicameral National Assembly of Kenya is the country's legislative body.The current National Assembly has a total of 224 members. 210 members are directly elected in single member constituencies using the simple majority system...

. He represented the KANU

Kenya African National Union

The Kenya African National Union, better known as KANU is a political party which ruled Kenya for nearly 40 years after its independence from British colonial rule in 1963, until its electoral loss at the end of 2002...

 party led by then president Daniel Arap Moi

Daniel arap Moi

Daniel Toroitich arap Moi was the President of Kenya from 1978 until 2002.Daniel arap Moi is popularly known to Kenyans as 'Nyayo', a Swahili word for 'footsteps'...

. He was an MP of Langata Constituency

Langata Constituency

Lang'ata Constituency is an electoral constituency in Kenya. It is one of eight constituencies of Nairobi Province. It consists of southern and southwestern areas of Nairobi. Langata constituency has common boundaries with Kibera Division of Nairobi. The entire constituency is located within...

 from 1979 and served as a cabinet minister for a short stint. He lost his parliamentary seat in the 1992 Kenyan general elections, the first multiparty elections in Kenya, when Raila Odinga

Raila Odinga

Raila Amollo Odinga , also popularly known to Kenyans as Agwambo, is a Kenyan politician, currently serving as the Prime Minister of Kenya in a coalition government. He has served as a Member of Parliament for Langata since 1992, was Minister of Energy from 2001 to 2002, and was Minister of Roads,...

 won the Langata seat.

Together with his wife Katy Leakey, he runs The Leakey Collection, a company exporting products made by Maasai handicrafts.

His parents are Louis

Louis Leakey

Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey was a British archaeologist and naturalist whose work was important in establishing human evolutionary development in Africa. He also played a major role in creating organizations for future research in Africa and for protecting wildlife there...

 and Mary Leakey

Mary Leakey

Mary Leakey was a British archaeologist and anthropologist, who discovered the first skull of a fossil ape on Rusinga Island and also a noted robust Australopithecine called Zinjanthropus at Olduvai. For much of her career she worked together with her husband, Louis Leakey, in Olduvai Gorge,...

, both famous paleontologists

Paleontology

Paleontology "old, ancient", ὄν, ὀντ- "being, creature", and λόγος "speech, thought") is the study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments...

. Philip is brother to Richard

Richard Leakey

Richard Erskine Frere Leakey is a politician, paleoanthropologist and conservationist. He is second of the three sons of the archaeologists Louis Leakey and Mary Leakey, and is the younger brother of Colin Leakey...

 and Jonathan Leakey

Jonathan Leakey

Jonathan Harry Erskine Leakey is a businessman and former palaeoanthropologist. He is the first son of famed anthropologists Louis and Mary Leakey....

, and half-brother to Colin Leakey

Colin Leakey

Colin Louis Avern Leakey is a leading plant scientist in the United Kingdom, a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge and of the Institute of Biology, and a world authority on beans.-Background:...

. His children by his second wife, Valerie Fraser Leakey, are Lara Fraser Leakey (married to Ninian Lowis), Kyela Fraser Leakey (married to Steve King) and Tiana Fraser Leakey.