Former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is rejoining Goldman Sachs Group Inc. as a senior adviser, two decades after he left the Wall Street bank as an analyst and a year after leaving Downing Street.
Sunak, who served as prime minister from October 2022 to July 2024, will work with leaders across New York-based Goldman to advise clients globally on a range of topics, “sharing his unique perspectives and insights on the macroeconomic and geopolitical landscape,” Chief Executive Officer David Solomon said in a statement Tuesday.
Sunak led the Conservative Party to its worst-ever defeat in last year's general election, but still serves as a Member of Parliament for the constituency of Richmond and Northallerton in northern England. During the election campaign, he vowed to remain an MP for the full duration of the next Parliament, regardless of the outcome of the vote. His successor, Labour's Keir Starmer, can call the next general election as late as mid-2029.
Sunak worked at Goldman first as a summer intern in investment banking, in 2000, and then as an analyst, from 2001 to 2004. He later co-founded an investment firm working with companies internationally.
Sunak and his wife, Akshata Murty, who serves as a trustee of her alma mater, Claremont McKenna College in Southern California, are the richest people to have occupied 10 Downing Street. Murty has a fortune of more than $700 million thanks largely to her stake in Infosys Ltd., the software giant founded by her father, according to an estimate by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Goldman's numerous ties to government figures have earned the bank the nickname “Government Sachs.” The company features on the resumes of such figures as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and former US Treasury Secretaries Henry Paulson and Steve Mnuchin.
Sunak's hire is also the latest in a spate of hires by Wall Street firms of former politicians, largely in the US, as they look to offer geopolitical advice to clients. Citigroup Inc. hired President Donald Trump's former trade representative Robert Lighthizer, while Reince Priebus, Trump's former chief of staff, recently joined investment bank Centerview Partners.
Before his time as prime minister, Sunak was chancellor of the exchequer from February 2020 to July 2022, and previously served as chief secretary to the Treasury and parliamentary under-secretary of state at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. He started his career in politics as an MP in 2015.
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