Andrew Griffith

Griffith was born on 23 February 1971 in Bexleyheath, London, England. He grew up in Bromley[3] and attended St Marys & St Josephs, a state comprehensive school, in Sidcup, Kent. From 1989 to 1992 he studied law at Nottingham University. He qualified as an (ICAEW) Chartered Accountant in 1996.

Griffith first worked for Rothschild & Co and PwC, before joining Sky in 1999 as a financial analyst.[4] By 2008, he rose to become Sky's chief financial officer, joining the board of directors, and at the time of his appointment was the youngest financial director in the FTSE 100.[5]

In March 2016,[6] Griffith took on an enlarged commercial and operational role as group chief operating officer, helping to grow the business to over 25 million customers, 39,000 employees and operating across seven different countries.[7]

He is a member of the Royal Television Society and was co-chairman of its 2017 Cambridge convention.[8]

In April 2014, Griffith joined the board of Just Eat as a senior non-executive director, a post which he held in combination with his full-time role at Sky. Just Eat then floated at £1.5 billion, the biggest technology IPO on the London Stock Market for eight years.[9] The company's market value rose above £5 billion by 2017, entering the FTSE 100.[10] However, in 2017, Just Eat was hit by the double challenge of losing its non-executive chairman to poor health and its chief executive officer stepping down all within three months, and then the Competition and Markets Authority reviewing Just Eat's acquisition of competitor Hungryhouse.[11][12] For his role in steadying the company through this period of turbulence and acting as interim chairman of the board, Griffith was named The Sunday Times' Non-Executive Director of the Year in 2018.[13]

Griffith stood as the Conservative parliamentary candidate for the constituency of Corby in 2001[14] and 2005, reducing the Labour Party's majority by 87% from 11,860 to 1,517 over the two elections.[15]

In 2016, Griffith and Baroness Dido Harding led the 'Fix Britain’s Internet' campaign for faster, more reliable broadband.[16]

Griffith was chairman of the advisory board at the Centre for Policy Studies, a think tank and pressure group who promoted policies based on "free markets, small state, low tax, national independence, self-determination and responsibility".[17]

Griffith was an early supporter of Boris Johnson and Johnson used his £9.5 million townhouse as his leadership election campaign headquarters.[18][19] In 2019, Griffith stepped down from his roles at Sky and Just Eat to become Johnson's chief business adviser, based in 10 Downing Street.[20][21] He took on the role in July.[22]

He was elected as the MP for Arundel and South Downs at the 2019 general election by a majority of 22,521 votes,[23] following the retirement of previous Conservative Nick Herbert.[24] He stood down from his chief business adviser position upon election.[25][26]

Griffith married Barbara, a volunteer charity worker, in 1997 and they have one son and one daughter. As a businessman he resided in Putney, in the London Borough of Wandsworth.[3]

His father, an IT salesman named John,[3] died of COVID-19.[27]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Andrew Griffith.

• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard
• Voting record at Public Whip
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou