RegulationSep 13 2022

Former Sky executive appointed as City minister

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Former Sky executive appointed as City minister
Andrew Griffith, financial secretary to the Treasury and city minister (Image credit: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Former Sky finance chief Andrew Griffith has been appointed as financial secretary to the Treasury and city minister, succeeding John Glen.

Griffith previously held the roles of executive, chief financial officer and chief operating officer at Sky over a period of 19 years.

Following this period, he was former prime minister Boris Johnson’s chief business adviser.

The appointment comes following the resignation of John Glen, the minister responsible for financial regulation and the City of London, in July. 

Glen resigned after a number of other MPs - including the previous chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak and health secretary Sajid Javid - handed in their resignations.

In his letter to prime minister Johnson at the time, Glen said it had “been a privilege’ to serve in HM Treasury under three chancellors but that he could “no longer reconcile my commitment to the role and to the financial services sector with the complete lack of confidence I have in your continuing leadership of our country.”

He added: “Recent events concerning the handling of the appointment of the former deputy chief whip, and the poor judgement you have shown, have made it impossible for me to square continued service with my conscious.”

Glen said reforms to financial services are ready to be presented to parliament and represent “a fundamental reset of the regulatory framework for the industry and consumers.”

Glen was appointed economic secretary to the Treasury back in January 2018 by former prime minister Theresa May.

Prior to Griffith’s latest appointment, he was parliamentary under secretary of state for the Department for International Trade,  between July and September 2022 and parliamentary secretary (minister for policy and head of the prime minister’s policy unit) from February to July 2022.

He was appointed adviser on Sustainable Infrastructure Investment from September 2021 until the end of December 2021 and was also the UK’s Net Zero Business Champion from November 2020 until the end of the Cop26 UN Climate Summit.

Griffith was also elected as Conservative MP for Arundel and South Downs in 2019.

sonia.rach@ft.com

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