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Posted: Thu 17th Oct 2024
Poppy Gustafsson, co-founder and former CEO of cyber security company Darktrace, is the government's new investment minister.
Appointed by prime minister Keir Starmer earlier this month, the entrepreneur is responsible for the "revamped" Office for Investment which aims to encourage investment from around the world in UK businesses.
Darktrace was set up in 2013 by Gustafsson and fellow tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, who died in August this year when a yacht sank off the coast of Sicily.
Gustafsson was the company's CFO for three years, followed by a brief period as COO, before being named CEO in October 2016.
During her time leading the company, Darktrace listed on the London Stock Exchange. She left the business earlier this year shortly before the company was sold to private equity firm Thoma Bravo for £4.3 billion.
Keir Starmer said:
"I am delighted to welcome Poppy Gustafsson OBE as our new investment minister, an accomplished entrepreneur who brings invaluable experience to the role.
"We're upgrading the Office for Investment to ensure it is fit for purpose and has the capability it needs to make the UK the first choice for investment and the best place in the world to do business, which is central to our mission to drive growth and make people better off.
Poppy Gustafsson added:
"It is a huge privilege to be appointed as the minister of investment and I am excited to get started.
"I have first hand experience of building and scaling a business here in the UK and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to share with the international investment community what I already know to be true; the UK is a great place to do business."
The government said that Office for Investment will become "a larger and better equipped organisation" by bringing together the Treasury, Department for Business and Trade, and 10 Downing Street as "a joint unit to streamline how the government approaches business and investment".
The office will also introduce "a new service to ensure that investors receive the strongest possible government support to navigate the planning and skills landscape".
All ministers have been asked to consider how their departments can work with the new office to attract investments into their sectors.
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