Former entrepreneur and current MP, Margot James has become the new small business minister in the prime minister’s cabinet reshuffle, succeeding Anna Soubry.

The MP for Stourbridge joins the new Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy as minister for small business, consumers and corporate responsibility.

Anna Soubry held the role under David Cameron but resigned as a minister following the Brexit vote.  

Born to a self-made entrepreneur father, James built her career in sales and marketing at her father’s company set up in the 1930s. In 1986 she founded her own business, a PR and educational services company, Shire Health, which was repeatedly received multiple industry accolades as ‘consultancy of the year’.

She sold her business to global marketing behemoth WPP and then became head of European healthcare for WPP’s advertising arm, Ogilvy & Mather.

In 2010, James became an MP, serving as parliamentary private secretary to former trade ministers, Lord Green and Lord Livingston.

This news follows the appointment of Greg Clark as the new business, energy and industry strategy secretary in a merger of the old Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Energy and Climate Change.