STANFORD, CA – Former British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been named the William C. Edwards Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution where he will be working on a wide array of issues including trans-Atlantic relations, economic policy, technology, and global security challenges.
“As former prime minister, Rishi Sunak holds extensive policy and global experience that will enrich our fellowship and help to define important policies moving forward,” said Condoleezza Rice, sixty-sixth secretary of state and Hoover Institution director. “The United States and the United Kingdom share a very special bond, and we look forward to the impact of his work on the many challenges facing democracies and the world in the years to come.”
From 2022 to 2024, Sunak served as the United Kingdom’s prime minister, the first British Asian to take the office. He was previously appointed chancellor of the exchequer, from 2020 to 2022. From 2019 to 2020, he was chief secretary to the treasury, and from 2018 to 2019, parliamentary under-secretary of state at the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government.
“Rishi Sunak’s deep knowledge of geopolitical issues and economic policy will make him an excellent addition to our Hoover fellows and to our university more broadly,” said Jonathan Levin, President, Stanford University. “I look forward to welcoming him back to Stanford.”
“I’m delighted to be joining the Hoover Institution at Stanford University as the William C. Edwards Distinguished Visiting Fellow,” said Sunak. “Hoover does superb work on how we can rise to the economic and security challenges we face and seize the technological opportunities of our time. I have huge affection for Stanford, having studied there as a graduate student. I look forward to contributing to the research of the Hoover Institution as it works to advance economic prosperity and international security.”
In 2015, Sunak was elected conservative MP for Richmond, and he served as a parliamentary private secretary at the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy from 2017 until his ministerial appointment.
“Thrilled to have Rishi join us at Hoover,” said Kevin Warsh, Shepard Family Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution. “His deep experience in policy and politics will contribute mightily to a reform agenda on both sides of the Atlantic. A new security and economic commons should have the US and the UK as charter members.”
Prior to entering British politics, Sunak spent his professional career in business and finance, working internationally. He cofounded an investment firm working with companies in multiple geographies. He then used that experience to help small and entrepreneurial British companies grow.
Sunak attended Winchester College and studied politics, philosophy, and economics at Oxford University. He was also a Fulbright Scholar at Stanford University, where he studied for his MBA.
With its eminent scholars and world-renowned Library & Archives, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University is a public-policy think tank that seeks to improve the human condition by advancing ideas that promote economic opportunity and prosperity while securing and safeguarding peace for America and all mankind.
