Meet Liz Truss, chartered accountant who rose to become UK's 3rd woman PM

Defeating Rishi Shounak, the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs since 2021, British politician Mary Elizabeth aka Liz Truss has become Britain's next Prime Minister on September 5. Liz Truss is the third woman to hold the position of UK's Prime Minister after Theresa May and Margaret Thatcher. 

Liz Truss contested against a divisive party leadership contest that pitted her against former finance minister Rishi Sunak. She won 81,326 votes of Tory members against former chancellor Rishi Sunak who secured 60,399 votes. 

In her winning speech from Queen Elizabeth 2 Centre auditorium, Truss said, “It's an honour to be elected as leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party, " adding it was one of the longest job interviews in history.

Early life 

Mary Elizabeth Truss was born on July 26, 1975, in Oxford. Her father was an emeritus professor of pure mathematics at the University of Leeds (father) and her mother is a Latin teacher at Bolton School. Truss married Hugh O'Leary in 2000 and has two daughters. Truss completed her graduation from Merton College in Oxford in the year 1996. 

Professional life

Started her career as a Chartered Management Accountant (ACMA) in 1999l and later worked at Cable and Wireless and rose to the economic director before leaving in 2005.

Political career

Truss served as the chair of the Lewisham Deptford Conservative Association and was elected the councillor for Eltham South in the Greenwich London Borough Council election in 2006.

On May 6, 2010, she was elected to the House of Commons and on September 4, 2012, she was appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Education. Along with this, she was given the responsibility for childcare and early learning, assessment, qualifications and curriculum reform, behaviour and attendance, and school food review.

Truss declared that she could be a candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party to succeed May only in 2019, but she endorsed Boris Johnson. She was then promoted to the position of Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade.

In the 2021 Cabinet reshuffle, Johnson promoted Truss from International Trade Secretary to Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs. She became the second woman to hold the position after Margaret Beckett.

Read: Liz Truss becomes new British Prime Minister, beats Indian-origin Rishi Sunak