Who is Nadhim Zahawi, UK’s new finance minister?

Zahawi was born in Baghdad in 1967 to Kurdish parents. He came to the UK when he was 9 years old with his family under threat of persecution from then Iraq President Saddam Hussein’s regime.

According to a Reuters report, as a child Zahawi struggled to speak English. He later attended King’s College School in West London and University College London where he studied chemical engineering.

In 2000, Zahawi co-founded a popular market research company YouGov, which became famous for its accuracy in political polling. The company, which started from his garden shed, was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2005 and currently employs more than 400 people across three continents. In 2008, Zahawi was named Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young.

After his success in business, Zahawi turned to politics and served as an adviser to novelist and former Tory MP Jeffrey Archer. In 2010, Zahawi contested the general election as the Conservative Party candidate for Stratford-upon-Avon and won. Given his business acumen, then Prime Minister David Cameron appointed Zahawi to the policy unit at Downing Street.

Since then Zahawi has held several posts as junior minister. In 2014, he was appointed to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, which is responsible for examining the government's foreign policy. In 2015, Cameron made Zahawi the Prime Minister’s Apprenticeship Adviser.

In 2016, Zahawi backed Brexit in the referendum. Under Prime Minister Theresa May, Zahawi was appointed Parliamentary undersecretary of state at the department for education in January 2018. The following year, he became the undersecretary of state for industry. During the pandemic in 2020, Zahawi served as the minister for COVID-19 vaccine deployment. Last year in September, Zahawi was appointed secretary of state for education.

After Sunak’s shocking resignation on Tuesday evening, the British Prime Minister turned to Zahawi to steady his government and the economy.

A senior government insider told Financial Times that Zahawi was a “class act” and is likely to pursue a different economic strategy than Sunak.

“He has a back-story of aspiration, drive and progression,” the source said.