PRIME MINISTER's chief business, investment and trade adviser, Varun Chandra, and Barclays chief executive, C.S. Venkatakrishnan, were among the prominent guests at the White House state dinner hosted by US president Donald Trump in honour of King Charles III and Queen Camilla on Tuesday (28) evening.
Over a lavish meal, King Charles echoed the tone of his earlier speech to Congress, urging London and Washington to stick together. President Trump hailed the longstanding ties between the two countries, though he drew attention by claiming the monarch had agreed with him on Iran's nuclear weapons.
In January, Sir Keir Starmer appointed Chandra as special envoy to the US on trade and investment. He is working closely with Christian Turner, the British Ambassador to the US, in the role.
Chandra played a key part in facilitating more than $10 billion in economic deals announced during King Charles's state visit to the US in September last year. He joined Starmer's team in July 2024 after spending a decade at strategic advisory firm Hakluyt & Company, and has strong links with US business leaders, including JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon.
Varun Chandra Varun Chandra
Venkatakrishnan took over the role at Barclays in November 2021, after the sudden resignation of his predecessor, Jes Staley, amid a regulatory investigation
Born in Mysore, in southern India, in 1966, he built his intellectual foundations at MIT, earning bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in operations research. He spent two decades at JPMorgan, honing his instincts across trading and risk before joining Barclays in 2016 as chief risk officer.
According to the New York Times, more than 100 guests attended the state dinner, including top administration officials, judges, Republican lawmakers and several entrepreneurs.
The British contingent at the dinner included foreign secretary Yvette Cooper, alongside Ambassador Turner. Don Robert, chairman of the London Stock Exchange Group, also attended, as did two-time Masters-winning golfer Rory McIlroy, who hails from Northern Ireland.
The dinner brought together some of America's most powerful figures. Tech titans Tim Cook of Apple, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Nvidia chief Jensen Huang were all present, along with venture capitalist Marc Andreessen and Salesforce boss Marc Benioff. Six Supreme Court justices attended, including chief justice John Roberts.
C S Venkatakrishnan – CEO, Barclays AMG
Senior administration figures including vice president JD Vance, secretary of state Marco Rubio and defence secretary Pete Hegseth were also at the table, alongside members of the Trump family including Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and Eric Trump.
During the event, the king and the president also struck a light-hearted tone, with Charles joking about Trump's recent comments that allies would be speaking German if not for US support in World War II.
"Dare I say that, if it wasn't for us, you'd be speaking French," Charles quipped, referring to the contest between the colonial powers of Britain and France before US independence 250 years ago.
Trump meanwhile hailed Charles's "fantastic" speech to Congress, adding: "He got the Democrats to stand -- I've never been able to do that."
The menu for the lavish dinner included a garden vegetable veloute, spring herbed ravioli and Dover sole meuniere, followed by a White House honey and vanilla bean cremeux.
(with inputs from AFP)
