The Spectator Economic Innovative of the Year awards, sponsored by InvestTech, are open for entries.

If you are an entrepreneur-led business bringing radical change to its sector, please apply at www.

We are looking for entries all across the UK, and our closing date is the 4th of July.

Hello and welcome to Women with Balls where I Katie Balls speak to today's trailblazers.

On entering Parliament in 2017, my guest was quickly pegged as one of the Conservative Party's

rising stars and an example of what she calls the British Dream, going from immigrant to

parliamentarian in the space of one generation. She was born in the UK but spent most of her

early years in her parents' native Nigeria. At the age of 16 and in the face of political unrest,

she moved back to the UK. Graduating with a degree

in computer systems engineering, she took these skills into the professional world as a software

engineer and then to the private bank Coots and then later here at the spectator. She made her

move into politics as a conservative member of the London Assembly, then beat Theresa May's

own special advisor to the ballot of Saifrin Walden, winning 41% of the votes.

As Minister of State for Equality, she has led the government's strategy for tackling race inequality.

The most recent addition to her brief came in the reshuffle when she was appointed as a minister in Michael Goh's levelling up department.

Of politics, she said, democracy likes sex as a messy business.

It's not always predictable.

Its results aren't always elegant.

They can be unexpected, but we adjust, and it's the unexpected that keeps politicians on their toes.

My guest today is Kemi Baddnock.

So thank you for joining us today, Kemi. We've been trying to get you on this

podcast for some time. I think we could say two years that we're going to go there. We begin by asking,

...