Kemi Badenoch

In the same month, Badenoch was selected to join the 1922 Executive Committee.

In September, she was appointed to the parliamentary Justice Select Committee.

Olukemi Olufunto "Kemi" Badenoch (née Adegoke, 2 January 1980) is a British politician serving as Secretary of State for Business and Trade since 2023 and President of the Board of Trade and Minister for Women and Equalities since 2022.

Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke was born on 2 January 1980 in Wimbledon, London.

She is one of three children born to Yoruba parents.

Her father, Femi Adegoke, was a GP and her mother, Feyi Adegoke, was a professor of physiology.

She has a brother and a sister.

Badenoch spent some of her childhood living in Lagos, Nigeria and in the United States, where her mother lectured.

She returned to the UK at the age of 16 to live with a friend of her mother's owing to the deteriorating political and economic situation in Nigeria which had affected her family.

Although a British citizen and born in the UK, during her parliamentary maiden speech Badenoch stated that she was "to all intents and purposes a first-generation immigrant".

Badenoch achieved A Levels from Phoenix College, a further education college in Morden, south London, whilst working at a branch of McDonald's among other jobs.

Badenoch studied Computer Systems Engineering at the University of Sussex, completing a Master of Engineering (MEng) degree in 2003.

She initially worked within the IT sector, first as a software engineer at Logica (later CGI Group) from 2003 to 2006.

Badenoch joined the Conservative Party in 2005 at the age of 25.

Badenoch then worked as a systems analyst at the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, before pursuing a career in consultancy and financial services, working as an associate director at private bank and wealth manager Coutts from 2006 to 2013 and later a digital director for The Spectator from 2015 to 2016.

While working there she read Law part-time at Birkbeck, University of London, graduating as Bachelor of Laws (LLB) in 2009.

At the 2010 general election, she contested the Dulwich and West Norwood constituency and came third, behind the Labour Party incumbent MP Tessa Jowell and the Liberal Democrat candidate Jonathan Mitchell.

In 2012, Badenoch unsuccessfully contested a seat on the London Assembly, but was appointed an Assembly Member after Victoria Borwick resigned upon becoming an MP in 2015.

In 2012, Badenoch stood for the Conservatives in the London Assembly election, where she was placed fifth on the London-wide list.

The election saw the Conservatives win three seats from the London-wide list, meaning she was not elected.

Three years later, in the 2015 general election, Victoria Borwick was elected to the House of Commons and thus resigned her seat on the London Assembly.

The fourth-placed candidate on the list, Suella Fernandes (Braverman), was also elected to the House of Commons, so declined the vacancy.

Badenoch was therefore declared to be the new Assembly Member.

A supporter of Brexit in the 2016 referendum, Badenoch was elected to the House of Commons in 2017.

She went on to retain her seat in the Assembly at the 2016 election, being succeeded in 2017 by fellow Conservative Susan Hall.

Badenoch supported Brexit in the 2016 UK EU membership referendum.

A member of the Conservative Party, she has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Saffron Walden in Essex since 2017.

Badenoch was shortlisted to be the Conservative Party candidate for the marginal Hampstead and Kilburn constituency at the 2017 general election, but was unsuccessful.

She was successfully selected as the Conservative candidate for Saffron Walden, a safe seat for her party, which she held with 37,629 votes and a majority of 24,966 (41.0%).

In her maiden speech as an MP on 19 July 2017, she described the vote for Brexit as "the greatest ever vote of confidence in the project of the United Kingdom" and cited her personal heroes as the Conservative politicians Winston Churchill, Airey Neave and Margaret Thatcher.

She was appointed as the Conservative Party's Vice Chair for Candidates in January 2018.

After Boris Johnson became Prime Minister in July 2019, Badenoch was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families.

She voted for Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit withdrawal agreement in early 2019.

In the indicative votes on 27 March, she voted against a referendum on a withdrawal agreement and against a customs union with the EU.

In the February 2020 reshuffle, she was appointed Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Equalities.

In September 2021, she was promoted to Minister of State for Equalities and appointed Minister of State for Local Government, Faith and Communities.

In July 2022, Badenoch resigned from Government and stood unsuccessfully to replace Johnson in the July–September 2022 Conservative Party leadership election.

Following Liz Truss becoming Prime Minister in September 2022, Badenoch was appointed as Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade and was sworn in to the Privy Council; she was reappointed to the Cabinet by Truss's successor, Rishi Sunak, the following month.

In a February 2023 Cabinet reshuffle, Badenoch assumed the position of Secretary of State for Business and Trade following the merging of the Department for International Trade with elements of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

Badenoch retained the responsibilities of Equalities Minister.