party’s head of economic policy who has
responsibility for compiling a crucially
important document – the general election
manifesto; and Seema Malhotra (96), shadow
minister for skills.
One of the journalists who merited entry is
the deputy political editor at ITV News, Anush-
ka Asthana (65), who attracted favourable at-
tention with her documentaries on the prime
minister and the Labour leader, Sir Keith
Starmer. It says something for multicultural
Britain that an Asian woman journalist is able
to grill an Asian prime minister on TV, or a for-
mer Tory home secretary (Suella Braverman)
can suggest Sunak is rubbish at his job and
should be replaced by someone on the far
right. There are no marks for guessing who that
someone should be.
The Power List is intended to be a snapshot
of who has done what over the past 12 months.
About 25-30 per cent of the names are replaced
by new ones from one year to the next.
There are 39 women on the list this time,
compared with 32 last year, although some are
bracketed, usually for reasons of space, with
family members. Akshata Murty probably
deserves to get a separate entry but has been
bracketed with her husband, Sunak.
Of the 22 new entries, two are worth picking
out for special mention. One is the appoint-
ment of Sri Lankan origin Indhu Rubhasing-
ham (10) as director of the National Theatre. It
is a post previously occupied by such theatrical
legends as Laurence Olivier, Peter Hall and
Trevor Nunn. One place above her is Samir
Shah (9), the new chairman of the BBC, an or-
ganisation which is unique in its ability to
shape Britain and indeed how the country is
viewed around the world.
In the Civil Service, there are currently no
Asian permanent secretaries. But there are
people in senior jobs, among them Kunal Patel
(41), deputy principal private secretary to the
prime minister, and Kumar Iyer (70), director
general for economics, science and technology
at the FCDO.
In the financial and corporate world, it is
worth taking particular note of Lord Jitesh Ga-
dhia’s (4) appointment as a non-executive di-
rector on the Court of the Bank of England,
which is the body responsible for the organisa-
tion. He is trusted by King Charles in his capac-
ity as chairman of the British Asian Trust, a
charity close to the heart of the monarch.
Gadhia has also been trying to act as a “bridge”
between the world of business and parliament,
and also between the UK and India.
In the City, Nikhil Rathi (14) is seeking
greater diversity and sweeping reforms as
chief executive of the Financial Conduct
Authority, where the previous incum-
bent, Andrew Bailey, left to become gov-
ernor of the Bank of England.
Leena Nair (5) is in her third year as
global CEO at Chanel, where the
French luxury fashion house ap-
pears to be doing well financially
with her in charge of it.
When it comes to the banking
world, two names stand out. One
is Vis(was) Raghavan (18), JP
Morgan’s co-head of Global In-
vestment Banking and CEO of
its business in Europe, the Mid-
dle East and Africa. The other is
C S Venkatakrishnan (15),
group chief executive at Bar-
clays.
The UK is still some way
behind America but another big name is Sal-
man Amin (23), CEO at Pladis, the global bis-
cuit and confectionary business with such
households brands as McVitie’s, Jacob’s, Carr’s
and Godiva in its stable. The Bestway group,
represented by Sir Anwar Pervez, his son, Da-
wood Pervez, and his nephew, Lord Zameer
Choudrey (25), is one of Britain’s premier fami-
ly businesses. It has a global workforce of
28,000, including 12,000 in the UK.
In the legal world, Asians, women especially,
have made impressive progress. Sir Rabinder
Singh (3) is a judge in the Court of Appeal.
Dame Bobbie Cheema-Grubb (7) is a high
court judge, as is Pushpinder Saini (28). Anuja
Dhir (31) is an Old Bailey judge, while Kaly
Kaul (81) is a circuit judge who has always
fought for the rights of women, not least in the
legal world. Ayesha Vardag (86) has long been a
high-flying divorce lawyer.
In academia, there is no one more
distinguished than the Cambridge economist,
Prof Sir Partha Dasgupta (12), who is turning
his landmark report, The Economics of
Diversity: The Dasgupta Review, into a popular
book, We and the World Around Us. This will
be published in many overseas territories, in
English (and in translation), by Penguin
Random House.
A historian who has inspired PhD students
from all over the world is Joya Chatterji (74),
emeritus professor in the history of modern
south Asia at Cambridge University and a fel-
low of Trinity College. She is the author of
Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth
Century, which William Dalrymple picked out
as “one of my books of the year”.
They can be called the tip of the iceberg be-
cause British universities have hundreds of
academics of Asian origin. The
medical word, too, especially
the NHS, simply could not do
without its Asian doctors and
consultants, as was obvious
during the pandemic.
Those working in the inter-
face between pure science and
medical research include a
number of brilliant people. They include Sir
Shankar Balasubramanian (34), Herchel
Smith Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at
Cambridge, who is researching targeted
treatment for cancer; Adar Poonawalla
(44), CEO of the Serum Institute of India,
which has collaborated with Oxford Uni-
versity to develop what looks like be-
ing an effective vaccine for malaria;
and Prof Sir Venkatraman (“Ven-
ki”) Ramakrishnan, who shared
the Nobel Prize for Chemistry
with two others in 2009 for his
work on ribosomes and whose
new book is called, Why We Die:
The New Science of Ageing and
the Quest for Immortality.
Also in this group are Dr Yu-
suf Hamied, the UK-based
chairman of the Indian phar-
ma giant, Cipla; and the
leading cardiologist Prof
Jaspal Kooner, who is seek-
ing to resolve the mystery of why Asians are
prone to heart attacks, diabetes and kidney dis-
ease with a view to finding possible treatment.
There has been a diversity dividend in the
arts. The multimedia artist Chila Burman (77)
has been shortlisted for the Fourth Plinth in
Trafalgar Square. Tanika Gupta (76) is now an
established playwright – her works included
The Empress – who has created scores of jobs
for Asians (and others) both on and off stage.
AA Dhand (76) is a crime writer, whose novel,
City of Sinners, “set in the dark and mean
streets of Bradford”, is currently being turned
into a six-part TV series by the BBC. It will have
mainly Asian characters. Dhand has also writ-
ten the screenplay. And the 28-year-old ac-
tress, Ambika Mod, who was
previously doing bit parts, has
been catapulted to interna-
tional stardom by being cast as
“Emma Morley” in the Netflix
romantic drama, One Day.
It is a big moment to have a
British Asian prime minister as
No 1 once again on the GG2
Power List. He wasn’t actually born to wealth,
which is why he has pointed out his story is
similar to that of thousands of other Asians in
the UK.
There will be passing controversies about rac-
ism – such as that of Lee Anderson – but Sunak
has said: “My story is a British story. A story about
how a family can go from arriving here with little
to Downing Street in three generations.”
He recalled: “One American magazine even
sent a reporter to Yorkshire to write about how
‘a candidate of the wrong race [could] cost the
Tories one of the safest seats in England?’ But
they should not have projected their own prej-
udices onto our country. The people of North
Yorkshire were not interested in my colour, but
my character. I am proud to be the first British
Asian prime minister, but you know what, I’m
even prouder that it’s just not a big deal.”
It is always possible to be negative. But GG2
Power List is also an indication that there isn’t
a country as harmoniously multicultural as
Britain anywhere else in the world.
GG2 Power List
GG2 Power List | 2024
I’m even
prouder that it’s
not a big deal
Ambika Mod
Leena Nair
Prof Sir Shankar
Balasubramanian
Marina Wheeler