Sajid Javid does not fit the Conservative stereotype and is expected to make big waves as he takes up the Business Secretary role previously held by Vince Cable.
The new secretary of state for business, innovation and skills is a state-educated son of a Muslim bus driver who moved to Britain from Pakistan. He studied at Exeter University rather than Oxbridge.
He’s clearly not made in the perceived traditional Conservative party mould, and as such he has been earmarked as a future leader as the party aims to redefine itself in modern Britain.
His belief in the free market will no doubt encourage retailers who feared an Ed Miliband-led Labour government would be too interventionist, however Javid’s Eurosceptic views could frighten industry chiefs.
Even dyed in the wool Conservatives such as Tory peer Stuart Rose have warned against the dangers to the retail industry of an EU exit.
However, Javid is believed to prefer a renegotiation of Britian’s position in the EU and argues the referendum the Conservatives have promised will provide greater leverage in negotiations.
Javid says that the European Union should be more focused on free trade in goods and services. It appears the European Commission is making moves in this direction already through the unveiling of its single digital economy, which promises to tear down red-tape.
However, he has said Britain leaving the European Union is not something he would be afraid of and said if that were to pass he would “embrace” the opportunities it would create.
Retailers will be hoping for a pro business approach from Javid, and will be looking to see rates at the top of the agenda.
Javid’s Thatcherite roots
Javid was inspired by Thatcher when watching her on the news with his father during the 1978/79 winter of discontent.
Like his father, who believed that people who wanted to get paid more should work harder, he developed a deep admiration for Thatcher.
Javid once revealed he “was a Thatcherite long before I was a Conservative”.
After being a bus driver Javid’s father ran a shop and just like his hero Thatcher, Sajid Javid lived above his father’s shop.
“Business is something that has been with me throughout my life,” Javid told the BBC following his appointment. “I grew up living above my father’s shop, he was a bus driver who then had market stalls, then we had a family shop. I believe passionately in free enterprise, it is the lifeblood of any successful economy.”
At university he set up the Exeter Enterprise Forum, which promoted capitalism to students, where he studied economics and politics.
He held such strong political views that he even went as far as taking the National Union of Students to the European Court of Human Rights.
Rather than becoming a career politician after leaving university, he instead embarked on a career in the banking sector and initially took up a position at Chase Manhattan Bank in New York in 1991.
His 19-year career in banking involved him rising to the position of senior managing director with Deutsche Bank AG.
Ditching banking for politics
He then decided to pursue his passion for politics and became MP for Bromsgrove during the May 2010 election.
His big political break that helped him rapidly scale the heights of the Conservative Party came when he was made parliamentary private secretory to the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne in October 2011.
Since then he has risen up the ranks and in April 2014 obtained a position in the Cabinet when he was shifted from the role of financial secretary to the treasury to the role of secretary of state at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
He was parachuted in following previous Culture Secretary Maria Miller resigning after becoming embroiled in a dispute over her expenses.
Javid’s appointment to Culture Secretary surprised many because of a perceived lack of interest in the arts, but the promotion was indicative of the high esteem he is held in by the Conservative Party.
But he has big shoes to fill following his move to Business Secretary today because he is taking on a position previously held by Lib Dem big hitter Vince Cable, who dramatically lost his seat to the Conservatives in the early hours of Friday morning.
Javid will hope to stamp his mark on the department and hope that three business secretaries, like buses, do not all come along at once.
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