Rishi Sunak has become the new U.K. Chancellor after the sudden resignation of Saji Javid. The news comes amid a shakeup in Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s cabinet. It was a sudden and surprising announcement given Sunak’s relatively short career in politics. The son-in-law of a billionaire had previously worked at Goldman Sachs and at hedge funds across London.

Rishi Sunak and His Meteoric Rise

Sunak assumes the top financial post of the British government. He carries a deep background in finance and investment banking. A graduate of Winchester College, he went on to study Politics, Philosophy, and Economics (PPE) at Oxford. He later obtained a Fulbright Scholarship and earned an MBA from Stanford University.

Sunak started his career in finance at Goldman Sachs in London. He received his MBA and would go on to work at The Children’s Investment Fund, a London-based hedge fund. He became a partner at Sir Chris Hohn’s fund in 2006. During his two years there, the fund had paid roughly 875 million pounds to its 20 partners.

Sunak later moved on to the Theleme Fund, founded by one of TCI’s cofounders. He also became a director of Catamaran Ventures, an Indian venture capital fund owned by Narayana Murthy, Sunak’s father-in-law.

Sunak then jumped into politics in 2015. He represented the constituency of Richmond, North Yorkshire. A prominent proponent of the Brexit, Sunak had authored papers arguing that free ports would create new jobs for British workers. His work caught the attention of senior leaders, who appointed him to the private secretary at the Department of Business. He later obtained a role with the Housing, Communities, and Local Government department in 2018. Then, in 2019, he became Chief Secretary to the Treasury and helped the Tory Party debate over Brexit.

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