Women We Love – Kemi Badenoch
Meet Kemi Badenoch – she is a Member of Parliament for the Saffron Walden constituency having been elected on 8 June 2017. She is Vice-Chair of the Conservative Party and a member of the Justice Select Committee.
Before being elected to Parliament she was a Conservative member of the London Assembly, acting as the GLA Conservative’s spokesperson for the economy.
She has been appointed as the new children’s minister of the UK
The 39-year-old was born in Wimbledon but was raised in Nigeria for 15 years.
She studied computer systems engineering at the University of Sussex and worked in IT before moving into a career in consultancy and financial services. She also served as ‘head of digital’ at The Spectator.
Growing up, her quest for financial stability saw her work at McDonald’s. This served as a means of support during her education.
During an interview with Huff Post in 2017, she detailed her life before politics.
“I’ve changed jobs three times in the past two years. I was a system analyst just over two years ago, but then after 2015 election I thought politics is what I want to do but my skill set is very techie and I can’t be a Spad [Special Advisor] or anything like that so I got a job as ‘head of digital’ at the Spectator.”
She had always had an inkling for politics, in her youth she held political positions at both primary and secondary levels of education. Hence, it was not surprising when the Conservative MP for Saffron Walden was appointed by Boris Johnson as the new children’s minister.
However, the children’s minister’s role includes elements of the school’s policy including special educational needs and high needs funding, safeguarding in schools, disadvantaged pupils, school sport and healthy pupils and the social mobility opportunity areas.
Fortunately, Kemi is no stranger to representing the needs of others, kids especially. She once spoke about school funding in the house of commons where she brought attention to a school in her district.
According to her website, Kemi is also a patron of several charities in the constituency including Support 4 Sight, The Stroke Club and CVSU.
Her other areas of interest include engineering and technology, social mobility and integration. She provides regular mentoring to women who wish to pursue careers in technology.
This is fantastic!!!