After twelve years since the release of the original Resident Evil, a key character in the backstory of the series will makes his first appearance.  Ozwell E. Spencer, the founder of the Umbrella Corp. and the man responsible for pretty much everything that has occured in the series, will make his first appearance in Resident Evil 5.

In 1966, Spencer, along with his colleagues Edward Ashford and James Marcus, discovered the mutagenic agent known as the Progenitor Virus. Two years later, in 1968, the three men founded the Umbrella Corp., a developer of bioweapons camouflaged as a phamarceutical company and began researching the t-Virus and other bioweapons. After the Mansion Incident and the Destruction of Raccoon City, the Umbrella Corp. went bankrupt and Spencer was nowhere to be seen.

http://www.famitsu.com/game/news/1221517_1124.html?ref=rankand