THE CORPORATE world, driven by balance sheets, and the rough-and-tumble of politics may seem poles apart, but not so for Sajid Javid. This Conservative Party politician of Pakistani descent has traversed both worlds with seamless ease, crafting an illustrious career in two seemingly different realms.
In 2024, Javid made a decisive return to the private sector, joining London-based global investment firm Centricus as a partner. This move came after he chose not to contest the July general election, marking the end of a 14-year parliamentary career.
For Javid, it was a homecoming of sorts. Before entering politics in 2010, he had spent two decades in investment banking, rising to prominence in the financial world.
“I had been looking to get back to the world of business for some time,” Javid explained, noting he opted for Centricus because two of its founders were his ex-colleagues at Deutsche Bank. His recent move wasn’t abrupt – even before taking up the full-time role, he had been working as a consultant for Centricus since March 2023.
Javid insists his motivations for entering politics remain undiminished. “The desire to serve and support good causes hasn’t left me,” he has said.
True to his word, he has taken on a new challenge: co-chairing a cross-party commission with Labour leader John Denham to address community cohesion in the wake of the Southport tragedy and subsequent riots, that rattled the country last year.
Facilitated by the Together Coalition – founded by Brendan Cox, widower of the murdered Labour MP Jo Cox – the commission will engage millions across the country to rebuild connections and tackle divisions.
Javid’s political career was nothing short of spectacular. Elected as MP for Bromsgrove in 2010, he became a minister within just two years.
While he grew up with working-class roots – his father, Abdul Ghani, was a cotton mill worker and a bus driver who arrived in the UK from Pakistan with just £1 in his pocket – Javid gravitated towards the Conservative Party, inspired by Margaret Thatcher’s advocacy for free markets and low taxes.
In fact, it’s his father who has inspired a devotion to Thatcher in him. “My dad lived through the Winter of Discontent and used to vote Labour, but switched to Thatcher, saying, ‘look how she's sorting out the country.’ I agreed,” he later recalled.
His rise through the ranks was swift. He was appointed a junior minister in the Treasury in September 2012, and in April 2024, then prime minister David Cameroon appointed him as minister for equalities, before promoting him as the secretary of state for culture, media, and sport a month later. Next year, he would take charge the business secretary.
In the Theresa May cabinet, he started as communities secretary in July 2016, but his big break came in April 2018 when May appointed him home secretary, becoming the first British Asian and first Muslim to hold one of the Great Offices of State.
This appointment highlighted not just his competence, but the symbolic importance of having a son of immigrants overseeing immigration policy.
A year later, Boris Johnson promoted him as the chancellor of the exchequer, making him the first ethnic minority politician to hold the role.
Yet, Javid’s tenure as chancellor was short-lived. In February 2020, he resigned after refusing to dismiss his advisors – a demand he described as something “no self-respecting minister” could accept. Rishi Sunak, who would later become prime minister, replaced him.
He would return to the Johnson's cabinet as health secretary in June 2021, making him a prominent figure in the UK government response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In July 2022, Javid resigned amid a wave of ministerial departures, sparked by scandals including Partygate, that ultimately brought down Johnson’s government.
“I am instinctively a team player, but the British people also rightly expect integrity from their government,” he wrote in his resignation letter to Johnson. “The tone you set as a leader and the values you represent, reflect on your colleagues, your party and ultimately the country.”
Javid’s story begins in Rochdale, where he was born in 1969, the eldest of five sons. His father, nicknamed ‘Mr Night and Day’ for his relentless work ethic, started as a cotton mill worker before becoming a bus driver and later running a ladieswear shop in Bristol.
Despite being told by a career advisor that “Stapleton Road kids don’t go to university,” Javid defied expectations, becoming the first in his family to earn a degree, in economics and politics from the University of Exeter.
His interest in finance was sparked by the Thatcher government’s privatisation campaigns. At just 14, he borrowed £500 from his father’s bank manager to invest in shares – a bold move that foreshadowed his future in the financial world. By 25, he was a vice-president at Chase Manhattan Bank in New York, and by 40, a managing director at Deutsche Bank in Singapore.
Javid met his wife, Laura King, during a summer job at Commercial Union. Married in 1997, the couple have four children. While Javid describes himself as a “non-practising Muslim,” his multicultural heritage and global outlook have shaped his approach to both business and politics.
