Former finance minister Rishi Sunak will be the United Kingdom’s next prime minister after seeing off his lone remaining rival, Penny Mordaunt, on Monday.
Sunak, 42, will become the first person of color to lead the UK, and the youngest to do so in more than 200 years. Rishi Sunak is UK’s first British Asian Prime Minister.
The contest was staged after Liz Truss quit as prime minister, becoming Britain’s shortest–serving leader ever following a disastrous term.
Speaking after being declared the new Conservative leader, Sunak said he was “honored and humbled” to become the next prime minister.
“It is the greatest privilege of my life to be able to serve the party I love, and to be able to give back to the country i owe so much to,” Sunak said.
“The United Kingdom is a great country, but there is no doubt we face a profound economic challenge,” he added. “We need stability and unity, and I will make it my utmost priority to bring our party and our country together.”
Sunak first publicly declared on Sunday morning that he would be standing in the contest. Other than that brief statement, he made no big pitch for the leadership this time round.
Biography
Born in 1980 in Southampton, he is the eldest of three children to his parents of Punjabi descent.
Mr Sunak’s father was a family doctor and his mother ran a pharmacy, where he helped her with the books.
He attended England’s oldest public school, Winchester College, where he became the first Indian-origin head boy and was editor of the school paper.
He has since said his experience at the boarding school was “intellectually transforming” and put him “on a different trajectory”.
Mr Sunak went on to study philosophy, politics and economics at Lincoln College at Oxford University, where he obtained a first-class degree.
After completing an MBA at Stanford University, where he met his future wife, Akshata Murthy, Mr Sunak worked for the investment bank Goldman Sachs as an analyst.
He was said to have already had job offers from investment banks under his belt while still in his second year at Oxford.
He moved to work for hedge funds in 2006 when he joined TCI, known as a very aggressive fund, and left three years later to cofound a new hedge fund.
Mr Sunak then turned his attention to politics.
