Chuka Umunna

Executive Director - ESG, Strategic Corporate Advisor, Change Management Speaker

Chuka is a top change management keynote speaker and the Executive Director at ESG. A veteran of public speaking with an easy authority and engaging style, he is a passionate advocate for positive change in business and has an in-depth understanding of the factors required to transform organisations both large and small.

Chuka Umunna Keynote Speaker Fee Fee range is for U.S. events, depending on location and organization type
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Chuka Umunna Keynote Speaker Fee Fee range is for U.S. events, depending on location and organization type
Please Inquire

Suggested Keynote Speaker Programs

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in business

As businesses and organisations address ESG factors to provide a more holistic approach to working practices, goals and attitudes, Chuka discusses and assesses how best to integrate ESG into decision making and how to align this with the demands and requirements of ...

As businesses and organisations address ESG factors to provide a more holistic approach to working practices, goals and attitudes, Chuka discusses and assesses how best to integrate ESG into decision making and how to align this with the demands and requirements of investors and shareholders.
Chuka looks at the impact of Covid-19 and the increasing global focus on equality, and whether this will lead to an increase in pressure on businesses and organisations to take account of ESG factors in corporate decision making.

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Business and economic policy – building back better

As the world enters what has been coined the ‘new normal’, Chuka draws on first-hand experience (in the corporate world and 10 years as a Member of Parliament) to address: the public policies needed to promote prosperity and growth; how to construct a more inclusive and ...

As the world enters what has been coined the ‘new normal’, Chuka draws on first-hand experience (in the corporate world and 10 years as a Member of Parliament) to address: the public policies needed to promote prosperity and growth; how to construct a more inclusive and productive capitalism; and how to build an environment that can nurture and incubate successful businesses.

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Corporate Reputation Management

As businesses seek to best manage their reputations and the competing demands of multiple stakeholders, Chuka provides his insight into the most effective ways for companies to campaign and illustrate how they deliver for shareholders and society at large.

About Keynote Speaker Chuka Umunna

Chuka Umunna is a strategic corporate advisor to companies on business-critical issues that impact on long term value, reputation and narrative – environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in particular.

He is Executive Director and Head of ESG at one of the world’s leading corporate advisory firms, a non-executive director of several UK companies, lawyer, keynote speaker and former politician who served in a number of senior roles for a decade in the UK parliament.

A veteran of public speaking with an easy authority and engaging style, he is a passionate advocate for positive change in business and has an in-depth understanding of the factors required to transform organizations both large and small.

More about Chuka Umunna

Umunna is a British former politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Streatham from 2010 until 2019. A former member of the Labour Party, he was part of the Shadow Cabinet from 2011 to 2015. He left Labour in February 2019, when he resigned to form The Independent Group, later Change UK, along with six other MPs. Later in 2019, he left Change UK and, after a short time as an independent MP, joined the Liberal Democrats. In the 2019 general election, he was unsuccessful in being re-elected as an MP and did not return to the House of Commons.

Born in Lambeth to a Nigerian father and English-Irish mother, Umunna was educated at St Dunstan’s College, a private school in Catford, Lewisham. He then studied Law at the University of Manchester and Nottingham Trent University. A teenage member of the Liberal Democrats, he joined the Labour Party in 1997 when the party was styling itself as “New Labour”. He worked as a solicitor in the City of London, first for Herbert Smith and then for Rochman Landau, while writing articles for the Compass think tank.

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Umunna was selected as Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Streatham in 2008, and was elected MP in the 2010 general election. When in parliament, he aligned with the party’s “Blue Labour” trend, which rejects neoliberal economics. He sat on the Treasury Select Committee until 2011, when he joined Ed Miliband’s Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. He was re-elected in the 2015 and 2017 general elections. After Miliband’s resignation, Jeremy Corbyn was elected Labour leader in 2015; Umunna was critical of the party leadership and resigned from the Shadow Cabinet to sit as a backbencher.

A supporter of the unsuccessful 2016 referendum campaign to retain UK membership of the European Union, Ummuna campaigned for a referendum on the final deal with the EU. In February 2019, he resigned from Labour and joined The Independent Group, later Change UK. He was its group spokesperson but left in June 2019 to sit as an independent MP following “disappointing” European Parliament election results showing the party had “failed to get a single MEP elected”. One week later, Umunna joined the Liberal Democrats and was appointed their Treasury and Business Spokesperson by leader Vince Cable. In August 2019, he was appointed Foreign Affairs, International Development and International Trade Spokesperson by new leader Jo Swinson. He stood for Cities of London and Westminster in the 2019 general election but lost to Nickie Aiken of the Conservatives.