VARUN CHANDRA is the mystery man whom The Spectator has described as “the most important adviser you’ve never heard of”.
He appears to have tried hard to stay under the radar, so who is he?
Chandra, who was appointed as “the special envoy to the United States on trade and investment” by the prime minister Sir Keir Starmer in January this year, has said he is “very proud” of his Indian heritage.
He was born in Britain in November 1984 and grew up in South Shields, “a lovely little seaside town in the northeast of England”. His parents arrived from Bihar, one of the poorest states in India.
Chandra was alongside Starmer at Chequers in July last year when the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi came for the formal signing of the UK-India Free Trade Agreement. With his hand gently on Starmer’s back, Chandra guided the British prime minister from stall to stall with various businesses displaying their wares inside a tent pitched in the grounds of Chequers.
The same month Chandra sat in on the talks between Starmer and Donald Trump when the US president came to Scotland on what was ostensibly a golfing mission.
When Starmer went to China in January, Chandra was included as a senior member of the delegation.
In December 2025, Chandra was shortlisted to become the UK ambassador to Washington, to replace Lord Peter Mandelson, who was sacked for his closeness to the convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. However, the post filled by a career diplomat, Sir Christian Turner.
When Labour won the general election in July 2024, Chandra left management consultants Hakluyt & Company to move into 10, Downing Street as the prime minister’s chief business, investment and trade adviser, a responsibility he retains.
In January, the government announced that Chandra, valued for his contacts in America where he had once been based, “will lead work across government to advance the UK’s economic interests in the United States and drive forward trade and investment opportunities in both countries”.
It went on: “The US is the UK’s largest single-country trading partner and bilateral UK–US trade was worth over £330 billion in the year up to summer 2025. During the US state visit (by Donald Trump) in September alone, the government saw record levels of investment – £150 billion – from US companies in the UK, creating 7,600 jobs across the country.
“Working closely with His Majesty’s Ambassador to the United States and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), the Department for Business and Trade (DBT), the Office for Investment (OfI), Mr Chandra will: strengthen UK Government engagement with US business leaders – with FCDO, DBT, HMT and consulates across the US network to improve senior access and connectivity to help drive further opportunities for growth.
“Leverage the Office for Investment to help deliver major inward‑investment opportunities, champion the government’s talent agenda in the US, and support British businesses seeking to access the US market.
“Act as the lead advisor on US trade negotiations — including the Economic Partnership Dialogue (EPD), Trade Partnership Dialogue (TPD) and related agreements, working to the secretary of state for business and trade as the responsible cabinet minister.”
The Spear’s 500, an annual guide and directory, often called the “Michelin guide of wealth”, commented: “As well as accepting a substantial pay cut as a result of leaving Hakluyt for public service, Chandra also gave up his role on the board of trustees of the British Asian Trust, which he had taken up in 2021.”
Chandra had previously also been a trustee of the Young Vic theatre, the MCC Foundation, Sesame Workshop, the Royal Academy of Arts, and the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity.
The guide added: “At least if he does return to private practice in a few years, his little black book will be even more impressive than it already was.”
Chandra has received raise from the US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, whom he met in January: “Always great to be with Varun Chandra. He is an excellent representative of Great Britain and a trusted friend.”
Chandra has spoken about his background in a conversation, called “Principal Navigations”, with two colleagues, Simon King and Tom Bristowe, when he was managing partner from 2019 to 2024 at Hakluyt & Company.
It is described as “a London-based, high-end strategic advisory and corporate intelligence firm founded in 1995 by former MI6 officials. It advises multinational corporations and investors on risk, market entry, and political issues, often utilising a network of well-connected individuals to provide information not found through conventional research.”
Chandra sketched in his parents’ background in Bihar: “Basically, my father came from a very subsistence peasant existence in a little village, (with) no running water, no electricity. He walked to school, and worked his way up, qualified as a doctor in Patna, which is the capital city of Bihar. Then came over to the UK when the NHS was looking for doctors.”
His parents found life in Britain to be unsettling. “I remember the first day at school. My mother got a leaflet inviting her to a wine and cheese evening for parents. And she didn’t know what wine was. Just all so alien to them. They came to this country to give my sister a better life.”
He hadn’t lost touch with his Indian side, said Chandra. “I speak fluent Hindi. I learned how to play the tabla, the Indian drums. We watched Bollywood films growing up.”
He emphasised he was “very proud” of his Indian heritage and of India. “That’s where my parents are from. That’s my heritage, and it’s a wonderful country with a tremendous history. Of course, I love Britain. It’s given me everything I have.”
As for his work ethic, “what I’ve always known from a very young age is because my parents told me their story, the amount of hardship and sacrifice and struggle that they had to go through. South Shields was not the most diverse place in Britain in the early 80s. My mother was going cafe to cafe. She tried to figure out how to contribute and have a job. She’s trying to sell samosas and being rebuffed. My dad suffered a lot of racism and didn’t know how to socialise, didn’t know how to go for a drink, talk about football and that sort of stuff. So he’s passed over.”
His father worked as a locum, which meant he was “away from us as a family for three weeks, trying to earn some money. I always felt obligated to make the most of every opportunity that I’ve been presented because of the sacrifices that they made for my success.”
There were no secondary schools in South Shields where anyone had “got over a (grade) C. Anyway, I got into the Royal Grammar School in Newcastle. I vividly remember the first lesson I had on my first day at school was with Mr Dickinson – it was an English lesson.
“I remember turning up with an incredibly thick Geordie accent. Young people nowadays like to say ‘like’ a lot. In the northeast, a version of that is ‘geet’. At this school, a lot of the kids had come from the local prep school. I was geeting away as I was asked a question by Mr Dickinson. All the other children started laughing at this boy who can’t speak properly, in a much thicker Geordie accent than most. And Mr Dickinson saved me. He said, ‘Let him say what he’s got to say.’ I can’t remember exactly the topic, but I got it out, and he made what I had said sound clever and thoughtful. He then replicated that through the course of the year. And I went from being quite uncomfortable in that environment to just rising and rising and rising, just in that single year. It was very easy for him to have just moved on, and that would have crushed me. It is so vividly in my mind that he did the opposite.”
He also talked of his strong bonds with a girl called Fiona Kelly.
“My mum encouraged me to do lots of things,” said Chandra. “She was an actress when she was in India, and wanted to encourage that in me. So from quite a young age, I ended up going to the English Shakespeare Company. It used to do touring youth theatres. I went to this about 11-12 years old, and it’s out of school. It’s just kids from all across Newcastle. And I met this girl, Fiona Kelly, who was a year older than me, and we hit it off. She was pretty and sporty and fun and vibrant. And from the age of 12 to about 18, she was like the other half of my soul. It sounds ridiculous, but that’s almost how we would talk about it. We were such close friends. At that age, it’s wonderful to have a friend like that.”
It was a period when his all boys’ school was starting to become co-educational. His friendship with Fiona gave him street cred. “And here I had the person I shared everything with, and she shared everything with me. Certainly, when you’re a teenage boy, being so close to Fiona, I probably developed a bit of a skill around people and human beings I perhaps wouldn’t have had otherwise.
“When you are a 13-14-15-year-old boy, being clever or musical doesn’t get you very far with your peers. And what Fiona gave me, she was my pal, and she just protected me from the not being cool thing. And the lads in the year above me were like, ‘What the hell are you doing with her?’ And it was just hugely helpful. She’s also white, and I wasn’t. And in the northeast at that time, brown people hung out with brown people. It was very helpful in preventing me from being pigeonholed. Again, I am very proud of my heritage, but I’m British, and I’m not going to be put into a bucket.”
The Spectator has provided a bit of personal detail: “Varun won a place at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he read philosophy, politics and economics, was elected president of the Junior Common Room, played cricket, rugby, hockey and football for the college, and met Emma Jenkinson, from Swansea. She was reading history and politics, and on New Year’s Day 2013 they were married.”
Chandra stressed: “I’ve got to be clear. RGS, Newcastle, that I went to, is a great school. I also had quite a lot of confidence by this point. What Oxford gave me – my college in particular was really important – was this view on what the world was like. Some things I’ve never heard of. What is the foreign office, a bank, concepts like Westminster, Winchester, Eton? What are all these things where everyone knows each other, and these networks? But it wasn’t intimidating. It was fascinating. Learning how Britain and the British establishment work began a little bit at university.”
Working for Lehman Brothers after university “gave me enough money as a starting salary to put a deposit down, get a mortgage”.
After a year and a half at the bank, he heard through a friend of a friend that the former prime minister, Tony Blair, was looking for a young banker to help build a business.”
At the age of 22, “I applied for the job, was interviewed and got the job. The day I started (in my new job) Lehman got bankrupt. I was extraordinarily lucky.”
At the interview, Blair asked Chandra to “walk me through leverage”. Chandra calmly did just that by drawing diagrams on sheets of paper.
“And that sets the tone of how he (Blair) chose to treat people, where he focused on competence and capability. He was incredibly decent. I spent five and a half years flying around the world, meeting presidents and prime ministers and billionaires and people running businesses. Understand the decision making process. What an education to have in your 20s.
“The final thing is people don’t know this man (Blair) particularly well. He treats everyone with absolute respect. Again, at a young age, to see someone of that position talk to the assistant of the billionaire in the same way that he talked to the billionaire was another real education.”
At 28, he was recruited by Hakluyt. “I saw quite early on this is such a wonderful place. There is so much potential. We have a really remarkable opportunity, to cut through the noise and be unbiased, independent, help people take better decisions. Having that influence and impact is incredibly exciting.”
He spoke of his gratitude at all the good things that had happened in his life. “I remind myself every day, that my parents were my parents, that they love me like they love me, that I went to the school that I went to. All of these things are luck, are fortune. And if you remind yourself of that luck every day, it gives you tremendous perspective. With perspective comes humility, and I think humility gives you freedom. All those little things that are irritating are put it into context and disappear. You realise just how fortunate you are.
ENDS