(January 30, 2026) At a moment of economic and geopolitical uncertainty, the UK government this month named Varun Chandra as its Special Envoy to the United States on Trade and Investment, entrusting him with one of Britain’s most consequential external relationships. According to the official statement, “The United States is Britain’s largest single-country trading partner” with bilateral trade “worth over £330 billion in the year up to summer 2025.” The appointment places Chandra at the centre of one of the UK’s most pivotal economic relationships.
In this capacity, Chandra will “lead work across government to advance the UK’s economic interests in the United States”, “drive forward trade and investment opportunities in both countries”, and act as the government’s “lead adviser on US trade negotiations”.
During the US state visit in September alone, Britain secured a record £150 billion in investment from American companies, creating 7,600 jobs across the country. Chandra, the statement made clear, will continue to lead “the full breadth of international business, investment and trade issues” in his parallel role as the Prime Minister’s Chief Business, Investment and Trade Adviser.
It is a portfolio defined by scale, power and proximity to the Prime Minister. Yet the contrast that gives Chandra’s rise is a force that lies far from Washington or Westminster.
Origins in Bihar, far from Westminster
On Principal Navigations, the podcast of Hakluyt & Company, where Chandra spent a decade before joining Downing Street, he traced his beginnings to a very different world. “It is a lovely little seaside town in the north-east of England,” he said of South Shields, where he grew up. “It is also very poor.” His parents had arrived there from Bihar. “The poorest state in India, basically,” Chandra noted, before adding that his father came “from almost a subsistence peasant existence in a little village, no running water, no electricity, would walk to school, 12 miles every day.” He went to qualify as a doctor and came to the UK when the NHS was recruiting overseas physicians.
The distance between rural Bihar and Britain’s corridors of power matters more to Chandra’s story than any formal designation. It accounts for both his fluency in elite circles and his attentiveness to those left outside them.
A role shaped by numbers and nerves
The timing of Chandra’s appointment is not incidental. His elevation comes amid visible strains in the transatlantic relationship, with the US under President Donald Trump issuing tariff threats and pursuing unpredictable foreign policy initiatives. As Business Standard noted, these tensions form the backdrop against which Chandra will be expected to steady investor confidence and keep channels of dialogue open.
Formally, his remit is expansive. According to the UK government, Chandra will work closely with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the Department for Business and Trade, the Office for Investment and the UK’s ambassador in Washington. He will strengthen engagement with US business leaders, act as lead adviser on trade negotiations such as the Economic Partnership Dialogue and Trade Partnership Dialogue, and support British companies seeking access to the US market.
Less formally, his job is about reassurance. During the September state visit alone, the government announced £150 billion in US investment into the UK. Chandra was deeply involved in securing over $10 billion in economic agreements during that visit. In many ways, the new title simply formalises a role he has already been performing by serving as the main contact point between Downing Street and senior US officials, including the commerce, treasury and energy secretaries, and the US trade representative.
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Humble beginnings
The transition of Varun Chandra’s father from rural Bihar to the UK was not smooth. He faced racism and social exclusion, often passed over because he did not know how to fit into English professional culture. His mother tried to supplement the family income by selling samosas from café to café, only to be turned away. Chandra grew up acutely aware of these sacrifices. He has spoken about feeling a quiet obligation to “make the most of every opportunity” not as ambition for its own sake, but as a form of responsibility.
Learning the language of institutions
Chandra attended the Royal Grammar School. At the time, he spoke with a strong Geordie accent (the distinctive working-class speech of north-east England.) and did not see himself as exceptional. An English teacher, he has said, helped him realise that ideas could be shaped and presented with confidence, and that what he said could “sound clever and thoughtful” if expressed clearly.
That lesson followed him to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics. Oxford introduced him to the inner workings of the British establishment, not as something to fear, but something to understand. “It wasn’t intimidating,” he later reflected. “It was fascinating, learning how the British Establishment operates.”
He played multiple sports, became president of the Junior Common Room, and absorbed the informal codes that govern elite institutions. For someone whose parents had arrived in Britain with little cultural capital, this fluency mattered. It allowed him to move comfortably across social and professional boundaries without appearing either deferential or defiant.
Banking, then a lucky exit
After Oxford, Chandra joined Lehman Brothers in 2005. The decision was practical. The salary, he has said, allowed him to put down a deposit on a flat, something he was keen to show his parents he had achieved. But the culture did not appeal to him. He looked at the senior figures around him and decided that was not the life he wanted.
In a twist that has since become part of his lore, Chandra resigned from Lehman just days before its collapse in September 2008. Soon after, he joined Tony Blair Associates as director of strategy. On his first day, Blair asked him to explain the mechanics of the financial crisis, including leverage. Chandra has spoken of that period as an education not just in global politics, but in how power is exercised with courtesy.
“He treats everyone with absolute respect and decency and humility,” Chandra said of Blair, describing the experience as a lesson in conduct as much as policy.
Varun Chandra with PM Keir Starmer during PM Modi’s UK trip in 2025
Hakluyt and the art of discretion
In 2013, at just 28, Chandra joined Hakluyt & Company, a discreet strategic advisory firm founded by former intelligence officers. The firm advises multinational corporations and investors on complex geopolitical, regulatory, reputational risks without advertising how it gathers its insights.
Chandra rose quickly. After a spell in New York, he became managing partner in 2019 and later founding partner and chairman. For a decade, he worked on issues ranging from mergers and acquisitions to market entry, ESG and senior leadership appointments. The work was global, but intensely human.
That sensibility comes through in how he describes his approach. In one widely cited remark, Chandra observed: “Superficially, a conversation with a businessperson in Mumbai will look and sound different from one in Tokyo, which in turn will be a very different experience from one in New York. We tend to fixate on these differences. But, in my experience, once you’re through the formalities, human beings are similar the world over.”
“Everyone wants to feel respected, to feel they have autonomy, and that they’ve had impact,” he continued. “Everyone wants to experience warmth and kindness, and to be treated decently. These things are universal, and they bring us together.” That belief, rooted perhaps in his own cross-cultural upbringing has shaped his reputation as someone who can work a room without dominating it.
From adviser to architect
In 2024, Chandra joined 10 Downing Street as the Prime Minister’s Special Adviser on Business and Investment. A year later, he was appointed Chief Business, Investment and Trade Adviser. The progression reflects both trust and necessity. As the UK seeks to reposition itself post-Brexit, it needs figures who understand markets, diplomacy and the psychology of decision-makers.
At a recent business event, Chandra spoke candidly about the challenges of reforming government machinery while delivering growth amid geopolitical uncertainty. He outlined what he called the four pillars of “Starmerism”: policy stability, active partnership with industry, a strategic approach to foreign policy, and reshaping the UK’s regulatory landscape to make it easier to do business. Investors, he argued, need clarity about “the size of the prize” and a sense that government understands risk rather than denying it.
Varun Chandra (extreme left) with PM Keir Starmer and others
The weight of representation
Chandra is careful not to frame his career as a symbolic victory. Yet his presence matters, particularly to Indian and diaspora audiences. He embodies a version of success that is neither loud nor assimilationist. His accent has changed, but his awareness of where he comes from has not.
That awareness surfaces when he speaks of his parents’ journey from Bihar to South Shields, and of the determination that shaped his own. It also informs how he views global engagement, not as a clash of cultures, but as a negotiation between people with similar hopes expressed in different languages.
As Special Envoy to the United States, Chandra will spend much of his time managing expectations, smoothing frictions, and persuading sceptical investors that Britain remains open, stable and worth betting on. These are not tasks that lend themselves to grandstanding. They require patience, memory, and a capacity to listen.
The UK government’s statement sets out the scale of his responsibility in numbers and bullet points. The fuller story of Varun Chandra lies elsewhere. It lies in a poor seaside town, in a mother selling samosas, in a father navigating an unfamiliar system, and in a son who learned early that progress often depends not on forcing your way in, but on understanding how doors open.
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