The former high-profile Labour politician Chuka Umunna has been hired by the US bank JP Morgan to lead its European environmental, social and governance (ESG) work. Umunna, 42, who was an employment lawyer before becoming a Labour MP in 2010, follows in the footsteps of other former UK lawmakers who have entered top finance jobs after leaving politics.
His appointment, first reported by the Financial Times, was announced to staff via a memo on Wednesday morning. The son of a Nigerian businessman and an Irish-English mother, in his new role Umunna becomes one of Britain’s most senior black bankers. As a full-time employee, Umunna will advise JP Morgan’s corporate clients on how to make their investments, takeover deals and fundraising more sustainable and socially responsible. Demand for ESG advisory services has grown, as asset managers such as Legal & General and BlackRock heap pressure on companies that fail to address the climate crisis. Umunna moves to JP Morgan from the communications company Edelman, which he joined last July to become head of its ESG consultancy team. He will drop a string of non-executive director roles to take the job at the Wall Street company, stepping down from companies including software firm Vista Equity Partners and UK fintech firm Digital Identity Net UK. JP Morgan has not revealed the value of Umunna’s financial package. The former politician was the Labour MP for Streatham in south London for nine years until 2019. Although Umunna was never in government, during his political career he rose to become a well-known figure in the shadow cabinet and served as the shadow business secretary. Umunna briefly entered the race to become Labour leader in 2015 but withdrew from the leadership contest, citing the impact the increased level of attention would have on him and his family. He left the Labour party, then led by Jeremy Corbyn, along with a group of other breakaway MPs to join the short-lived Change UK party in 2019. Umunna’s political career came to an end after he joined the Liberal Democrats, vacated his south London seat and unsuccessfully contested the Cities of London and Westminster constituency in the 2019 general election. Several other former senior British politicians have entered top finance roles after leaving frontbench politics.
The former Conservative chancellor Sajid Javid was hired as a senior adviser to JP Morgan in 2020, in a return to his previous career in banking, although he remains an MP. The former Labour prime minister Tony Blair was hired as a global adviser at the Wall Street bank in 2008. George Osborne, Conservative chancellor from 2010 to 2016 and known for having a portfolio of jobs since leaving office, took up a full-time role earlier this month as a partner at the London-based boutique investment bank Robey Warshaw. Osborne has given up nearly all of his other jobs, including editor-in-chief of the Evening Standard newspaper and adviser to the investment firm BlackRock, to become a full-time banker.