kemi badenoch Biography- Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke Badenoch, born on 2 January 1980, is a British politician. She has held various positions including Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, Communities, and Local Government since 2025, Secretary of State for Business and Trade from 2023 to 2025, President of the Board of Trade, and Minister for Women and Equalities from 2022 to 2025. A member of the Conservative Party, she represented Saffron Walden in Essex as a Member of Parliament from 2017 to 2025. She won the 2025 general election and now represents the new seat of North West Essex.
kemi badenoch Biography
In 2012, Badenoch ran for a London Assembly seat but didn’t win. Later, she became an Assembly Member in 2015. Badenoch supported Brexit in the 2016 vote and won a House of Commons seat in 2017. When Boris Johnson became Prime Minister in July 2019, Badenoch was made an Under-Secretary for Children and Families. In February 2020, she became Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury and an Under-Secretary for Equalities after a reshuffle. By September 2021, she was promoted to Minister of State for Equalities and Local Government. In July 2022, Badenoch left her government post due to disagreements with Johnson. She ran unsuccessfully for Conservative Party leader from July to September 2022. After Liz Truss became Prime Minister in September 2022, Badenoch was appointed Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade. Rishi Sunak retained her as Trade Secretary and named her Women and Equalities Minister in October. During a February 2023 reshuffle, Badenoch became Business and Trade Secretary by merging departments while maintaining her Women and Equalities Minister role.
Olukemi Olufunto “Kemi” Badenoch is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Business and Trade from 2023 to 2025 and President of the Board of Trade and as Minister for Women and Equalities from 2022 to 2025.
Born: 2 January 1980 (age 44 years), Wimbledon, London, United Kingdom
Previous offices: Secretary of State for Business and Trade (2023–2025)
Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke was born on 2 January 1980 in Wimbledon, London. She is one of three children born to Nigerian Yoruba parents. Her father, Femi Adegoke, worked as a GP, and her mother, Feyi Adegoke, was a professor of physiology. She has a brother and a sister. During her childhood, Olukemi lived in Lagos, Nigeria, and in the United States, where her mother taught. She moved back to the UK at 16 to live with one of her mother’s friends due to the political and economic challenges in Nigeria that affected her family. Despite being a British citizen and born in the UK, in her debut speech in Parliament, Olukemi stated that she considered herself “essentially a first-generation immigrant”.
Education and early career
Badenoch completed her A Levels at Phoenix College in Morden, south London, while holding various jobs, including at McDonald’s. She earned a Master of Engineering (MEng) degree in Computer Systems Engineering from the University of Sussex in 2003. Following this, she worked as a software engineer at Logica (later CGI Group) and studied Law part-time at Birkbeck, University of London, graduating with a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) in 2009. Badenoch then worked in various roles, including as a systems analyst at Royal Bank of Scotland Group, an associate director at Coutts, and a digital director at The Spectator.
Kemi Badenoch has an estimated net worth of $3 million.
Who is Hamish Badenoch?
He is a renowned British banker who prefers to maintain privacy regarding his personal life, including details about his family and age. Hamish Badenoch completed his education in London before pursuing a history degree at the University of Cambridge, Trinity College.
In 2005, Badenoch became a member of the Conservative Party when she was 25 years old. During the 2010 general election, she participated in the Dulwich and West Norwood constituency and secured third place, following the Labour Party’s Tessa Jowell and the Liberal Democrat candidate Jonathan Mitchell.
In 2012, Badenoch ran for the Conservatives in the London Assembly election and placed fifth on the London-wide list. Despite the Conservatives winning three seats from the London-wide list, she was not elected. In the 2015 general election, Victoria Borwick won a seat in the House of Commons and resigned from the London Assembly. Suella Fernandes (Braverman), the fourth-placed candidate, also won a seat in the House of Commons and declined the vacancy, leading to Badenoch becoming the new Assembly Member. She retained her seat in the 2016 Assembly election and was succeeded by Susan Hall in 2017. Badenoch supported Brexit in the 2016 UK EU membership referendum.
Parliamentary career
Badenoch was a finalist for the Conservative Party candidacy in the closely contested Hampstead and Kilburn constituency during the 2017 general election, but did not succeed. She did, however, secure the Conservative nomination for Saffron Walden, a stronghold for her party, where she won with 37,629 votes and a 41.0% majority of 24,966.
Personal life
She is married to Hamish Badenoch; together they have two daughters and a son. Badenoch’s husband, Hamish, is employed at Deutsche Bank and previously served as a Conservative councillor from 2014 to 2018 on Merton Borough Council, where he represented Wimbledon Village. In addition, he ran as a candidate for the Northern Ireland Conservatives in Foyle during the 2015 general election, finishing in last place. Until 2016, Badenoch was a board member of the Charlton Triangle Homes housing association and was involved as a school governor at St Thomas the Apostle College in Southwark and the Jubilee Primary School. Describing herself as an agnostic with cultural Christian beliefs, she mentions that her maternal grandfather was a Methodist minister in Nigeria. Recently, Badenoch took a short period of bereavement leave from her ministerial responsibilities following the passing of her father, Femi, in February 2022.
Kemi Badenoch Enters Tory Leadership Race as Frontrunner
Former UK Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch is running for the Conservative Party leadership after a major election loss. Bookies favor her to win. Badenoch, 44, aims to revive the party and hopes to be in power by 2030. She plans to write about this in The Times on Sunday. The Tories want a new leader by November after Labour’s long rule ended. Badenoch stresses rebuilding with clear economic principles that benefit everyone, emphasizing a positive change for capitalism.
Badenoch is the sixth person to join the race. She is currently the frontrunner with odds of 2/1, according to bookies. The other contenders include Priti Patel, Mel Stride, James Cleverly, Tom Tugendhat, and Robert Jenrick. The announcement was made shortly before the nomination deadline on Monday. Conservative MPs will select four candidates by the end of September for the party conference. Two finalists will then be chosen for a final vote by party members, with the new leader being revealed on Nov. 2. During a debate at Bloomberg in London, Badenoch avoided questions about aiming to follow Rishi Sunak as Tory leader. She expressed contentment with her current role as business secretary and hinted it was less challenging than being prime minister.