Chuka Umunna – the former Labour, Change UK and Liberal Democrat MP – has joined JPMorgan, and will oversee the Wall Street giant’s European environmental, social and governance advisory efforts.
An employment lawyer before he was elected in 2010, Umunna will join JPMorgan in a newly-created role, which will unite all its ESG-related activities, according to the Financial Times.
The new job will make Umunna – who lost as the Lib Dem candidate in Cities of London and Westminster to a Conservative party candidate in the 2019 election – one the most senior Black bankers in London’s financial services industry.
Umunna served as shadow business secretary under Ed Miliband – but quit Labour in protest at Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership to found Change UK, an ill-fated new party. He then joined the Lib Dems after Change UK fared badly in EU elections.
The 42-year-old’s move into banking follows in the footsteps of a number of former MPs in recent years. It emerged last week that George Osborne, the ex-chancellor, is joining London-based boutique advisory firm Robey Warshaw.
Another former Conservative chancellor, Sajid Javid, nabbed a lucrative position advising JPMorgan last summer.
Shortly after stepping down as prime minister, Tony Blair also took a £2 million-a-year part-time role counselling JPMorgan and, in 2015, his successor Gordon Brown became an adviser to Pimco, one of the world’s largest asset managers.
In a memo seen by the FT, JPMorgan’s Emea head Vis Raghavan said that ESG impacts “everything from corporate finance strategies and investment flows to day-to-day operational decisions and capital allocation.”
“Clients are looking at how they may need to adapt their business models,” he added.
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