Ian Hetherington was co-founder of Psygnosis, a company responsible for creating many early computer games. Along with Jonathan Ellis, Hetherington founded Psygnosis from the ashes of the defunct game company Imagine Software where Hetherington was the Financial Director. Working at their Liverpool-based game company, Psygnosis's team was responsible for publishing such games as Shadow of the Beast, Wipeout and perhaps the most famous of all, Lemmings.
Psygnosis was later acquired by Sony in 1993 to work on the PlayStation console. The name Psygnosis eventually became defunct, and the company became known as Sony Studio Liverpool. There are currently multiple sequels to many of Psygnosis's games to date, as well a recent PSP release of Wipeout, called Wipeout Pure.
Hetherington was also Chairman of Evolution Studios and Realtime Worlds. He counts racing Ferraris in club events as his hobby.