Nadhim Zahawi

His father is Hareth Nadhim Al Zahawi (born 1942), a British-Iraqi businessman who established the Al-Zahawi Group, which after the United States invasion of 2003 obtained a lucrative contract to provide logistics, cleaning and support services to the new US-led interim government.

Now known as IPBD ("Iraq Project and Business Development"), its interests have expanded to cover steel manufacturing and property development, and generally "supporting the reconstruction effort".

Zahawi's father is also a director of Balshore Investments Ltd, Gibraltar.

When he was eleven years old, during Saddam Hussein's rise to power, he and his family fled to the UK.

His paternal grandfather was Nadhim al-Zahawi, Governor of the Central Bank of Iraq from 1959 to 1960, and Minister of Trade.

Nadhim Zahawi (ناظم الزهاوي; نەدیم زەهاوی; born 2 June 1967) is an Iraqi-born British politician who served in various ministerial positions under prime ministers Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak from 2018 to 2023.

He most recently served as Chairman of the Conservative Party and Minister without Portfolio from 25 October 2022 until he was dismissed by Sunak on 29 January 2023.

Zahawi was educated at Holland Park School, before moving to Ibstock Place School and then at King's College School, an independent school in Wimbledon, London, followed by University College London, where he earned a BSc degree in chemical engineering in 1988.

In the 1990s, Zahawi was part owner of a Nuneaton-based licensed clothes manufacturer, Allen (Hinckley) Ltd (formerly known as Pagecomp Ltd ).

The company produced clothing with licensed designs, ranging from Warner Brothers to World Cup '98 to the Teletubbies.

Jeffrey Archer invested six-figure sums in the company and would go on to own one-third of the company.

By December 1998, the company had collapsed with millions of debt and the loss of around 100 jobs.

Following a career as European Marketing Director for Smith & Brooks Ltd, Zahawi co-founded YouGov in 2000 with Stephan Shakespeare.

Zahawi was YouGov's CEO from 2005 to 2010.

In 2008, Zahawi became a non-executive director of SThree, a specialist staffing organisation.

A member of the Conservative Party, he became Member of Parliament (MP) for Stratford-on-Avon in 2010.

Born in Baghdad to a Kurdish family, Zahawi was co-founder of international Internet-based market research firm YouGov of which he was chief executive until February 2010.

After the retirement of previous Conservative MP John Maples, he was elected for Stratford-on-Avon at the 2010 general election.

In 2010, Zahawi stated: "There's a company I have set up and failed in Allen (Hinckley) Ltd. I don't hide my failures".

Zahawi responded to the news story by saying: "I did pay stamp duty on my property in Tysoe and have always paid stamp duty on my property purchases. I fully support the 2012 budget and all budgets of this government. I purchased my property in Tysoe with a mortgage from a Gibraltar company. This fact and the details involved are fully declared on the Land Registry and to suggest it is in any way hidden would be factually incorrect. Equally, to suggest that in any way I am using offshore to reduce my tax burden is entirely incorrect."

In November 2013, it was reported by the Birmingham Mail newspaper that in May 2011 (one year after he became an MP) Zahawi used as a mortgage lender Berkford Investments Limited, based in the low-tax British overseas territory of Gibraltar, to finance the purchase of his constituency home 'Oaklands' riding stables estate (worth at the time £875,000) in Upper Tysoe, near Stratford-upon-Avon, in Warwickshire.

Berkford Investments Limited is managed by T&T Management Services Limited, whose services include wealth management.

He was paid £2,917 per month in 2014.

In 2015, he joined Gulf Keystone Petroleum, an oil and gas exploration and production company, as a part-time chief strategy officer.

For his work between 2015 and 2017 for the company, he was paid a total of at least £1.3 million.

He stepped down from the role in October 2017.

A chemical engineer in his earlier career, he was chief strategy officer for Gulf Keystone Petroleum until January 2018.

Zahawi joined Theresa May's government as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families in the 2018 reshuffle.

Following Boris Johnson's appointment as prime minister, he was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Industry, and in 2020 he was given additional responsibility for the COVID-19 vaccination programme as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for COVID-19 Vaccine Deployment.

In the 2021 cabinet reshuffle he was promoted to Johnson's cabinet as Secretary of State for Education.

On 5 July 2022, he became the Chancellor of the Exchequer after the resignation of Rishi Sunak.

Less than 48 hours later, Zahawi withdrew his support for Johnson and publicly called on him to resign, which Johnson did shortly afterwards.

Zahawi was a candidate to succeed Johnson in the Conservative Party leadership election, but was eliminated from the ballot after the first round of voting, and subsequently supported Truss's bid to become Conservative leader.

Truss appointed Zahawi as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Minister for Intergovernmental Relations and Minister for Equalities on 6 September 2022 following her appointment as prime minister.

He was succeeded as chancellor by Kwasi Kwarteng.

After Truss resigned in October 2022, Zahawi endorsed Johnson to return to the premiership.

After Johnson withdrew from the race, he supported Sunak's bid to become Conservative leader.

Sunak appointed Zahawi as Chairman of the Conservative Party and Minister without Portfolio on 25 October 2022 following his appointment as prime minister.

On 29 January 2023, he was dismissed from the roles after Sunak's ethics adviser, Laurie Magnus, advised that he had breached the Ministerial Code by failing to disclose that he was being investigated by HM Revenue and Customs while he served in his previous position as Chancellor of the Exchequer under Johnson.

Zahawi was born in a prominent Kurdish family from Baghdad.