Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke Badenoch née Adegoke; born 2 January 1980 is a British politician who has served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Conservative Party since November 2024. The first Black person to hold those offices, Badenoch previously served in the Cabinet under Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak from 2022 to 2024. She has been Member of Parliament (MP) for North West Essex, previously Saffron Walden, since 2017.
In 2012, Kemi Badenoch unsuccessfully contested a seat in the London Assembly but became a member of the London Assembly after Victoria Borwick was elected as an MP in 2015. A supporter of Brexit in the 2016 referendum, Badenoch was elected to the House of Commons at the 2017 general election.
After Boris Johnson became prime minister in July 2019, Badenoch was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families. In the February 2020 reshuffle she was appointed Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Equalities. In September 2021 she was promoted to Minister of State for Equalities and appointed Minister of State for Local Government, Faith and Communities.
In July 2022, Badenoch resigned from government in protest at Johnson's leadership; she stood unsuccessfully to replace him in the July–September 2022 party leadership election. After Liz Truss was appointed prime minister in September 2022, Badenoch was appointed Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade and was appointed to the Privy Council; she was reappointed Trade Secretary by Truss's successor, Rishi Sunak, the following month, also becoming Minister for Women and Equalities.
In the February 2023 Cabinet reshuffle, Badenoch assumed the position of Secretary of State for Business and Trade following the merging of the Department for International Trade with elements of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Badenoch retained the responsibilities of Women and Equalities Minister. After the Conservatives' defeat in the 2024 general election, Badenoch was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government in Sunak's Shadow Cabinet and later launched her bid to become leader of the Conservative Party in the 2024 leadership election. She defeated Robert Jenrick in the members' ballot, becoming party leader and Leader of the Opposition.
Early life and education
Kemi Badenoch was born on 2 January 1980 in Wimbledon, London. Her mother had travelled from Nigeria to the UK to give birth in St Teresa's private hospital before the British Nationality Act 1981 abolished automatic birthright citizenship for those born in the United Kingdom, and then returned to Nigeria shortly after Badenoch was born. She is one of three children born to Nigerian Yoruba parents.
Her father, Femi Adegoke, was a GP who later founded a publishing company in Nigeria and became an activist for the rights for the Yoruba people. Her mother Feyi was a professor of physiology in America and at the University of Lagos. She has a brother and a sister. According to a profile in The Times, Badenoch is the first cousin once removed of former Nigerian Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo.
Badenoch spent her childhood living in Lagos, Nigeria, and in the United States, where her mother lectured. Badenoch has spoken about having a "very tough upbringing" in Nigeria. Her family lived in the middle class neighbourhood of Surulere and she was a student at the private International School of Lagos. Badenoch has described her background as "middle-class" but said in 2018 "Being middle class in Nigeria still meant having no running water or electricity, sometimes taking your own chair to school" and claimed that her family went through "periods of poverty" due to inflation. She returned to the UK at the age of 16 to live with a friend of her mother's owing to the deteriorating political and economic situation in Nigeria, which had affected her family. During her parliamentary maiden speech Badenoch stated that she was "to all intents and purposes a first-generation immigrant".
Badenoch studied A Levels in biology, chemistry and maths, from Phoenix College, a further education college in Morden, South London. She achieved a B in Biology, a B in Chemistry and a D in Maths, claiming that "no one at the school had pushed her to fulfil her potential" despite being a "straight A student" while in Nigeria and that being let down by the British education system pushed her to become a Conservative. She consequently missed out on her place at Warwick University. Concurrently, she worked at a branch of McDonald's, among other jobs. During this time, she said she "became working class". Badenoch studied Computer Systems Engineering at the University of Sussex, completing a Master of Engineering (MEng) degree in 2003. Kemi studied Law at Birkbeck College, University of London, graduating with a LLB in 2009.
Early career
She initially worked within the IT sector, first as a software engineer at Logica (later CGI Group) from 2003 to 2006. While working there she read Law part-time at Birkbeck, University of London, graduating as Bachelor of Laws (LLB) in 2009. Badenoch then worked as a systems analyst at the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, before pursuing a career in consultancy and financial services, working as an associate director at private bank and wealth manager Coutts from 2006 to 2013 and later a digital director for The Spectator from 2015 to 2016.
Awards
In December 2024, Kemi Badenoch was included in the BBC 100 Women 2024 list.
Personal life
She is married to Hamish Badenoch; they have two daughters and a son. Hamish works for Deutsche Bank and was a Conservative councillor from 2014 to 2018 on Merton Borough Council. He also contested Foyle for the Northern Ireland Conservatives at the 2015 general election.
Kemi Badenoch was a board member of the Charlton Triangle Homes housing association until 2016, and was also a school governor at St Thomas the Apostle College in Southwark, and the Jubilee Primary School.
Badenoch describes herself as an agnostic with cultural Christian values and notes that her maternal grandfather was a Methodist minister in Nigeria.
Badenoch's father died in February 2022 and she took bereavement leave from her ministerial duties for a brief period.
