(Reuters) -Former British prime minister Rishi Sunak will return to Goldman Sachs in an advisory role, the Wall Street bank said on Tuesday, taking a new post a year after he led the Conservatives to a crushing electoral defeat.
Sunak, who remains a Conservative member of parliament from a seat in northern England, previously worked at Goldman as an analyst in the early 2000s, before joining a series of hedge funds.
Through a combination of his past career in financial services and the family wealth of his wife, whose father co-founded the Indian IT services company Infosys, Sunak became the wealthiest British prime minister, drawing criticism of being out of touch with ordinary people.
He has remained largely out of the spotlight since resigning as leader of the Conservatives after the party’s worst defeat in over a century last July. He took up posts at Oxford and Stanford universities earlier this year.
Goldman’s hiring of Sunak, who had also served as Britain’s finance minister, as senior adviser adds to a long list of senior politicians taking up positions in finance where their policy background and global networks are viewed as strategic assets.
“I am excited to welcome Rishi back to Goldman Sachs,” Goldman CEO David Solomon said in a statement. “In his role, he will work with leaders across the firm to advise our clients globally on a range of important topics, sharing his unique perspectives and insights on the macroeconomic and geopolitical landscape,” Solomon said.
Former British finance ministers George Osborne and Sajid Javid have also made the move to finance, with Osborne holding positions at asset manager BlackRock and advisory firm Robey Warshaw and Javid becoming a partner at investment firm Centricus.
(Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru and Sachin Ravikumar in London; Editing by Tasim Zahid, Maju Samuel and Tomasz Janowski)
