Theodore Agnew, Baron Agnew of Oulton


Theodore Thomas More Agnew, Baron Agnew of Oulton, is a British businessman, Conservative life peer and Minister of State for the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury. Lord Agnew also founded the Inspiration Trust, and is the Trust's former chairman.

Early life

He was born in Norfolk, brought up in Oulton near Aylsham and educated at Beeston Hall School and Rugby School. After school, he worked in Canada and Australia, initially in farming but later buying and selling a variety of businesses.

Career

After working in Australia, he returned to the UK and founded Town & Country Assistance in 1989 and grew the business to annual gross revenues of £40 million pa. Selling it to Warburg Pincus in 2002, he became co-founder of WNS Global Services. He resigned as a non-executive director of Jubilee Managing Agency Ltd in 2011, a Lloyd's insurance business managing £130 million of premiums.
He has a financial interest in the artificial intelligence company Faculty.
He is a past trustee of Policy Exchange, a Westminster-based think tank. He served as chairman of the Norfolk Community Foundation in 2013 but remains a vice patron.
Agnew is the founder and chairman of the Inspiration Trust, a multi-academy trust that runs fourteen schools in East Anglia. The Trust was founded as the East Norfolk Academy Trust on 14 August 2012, changing its name to the Inspiration Trust on 27 January 2013.
Agnew was a non-executive board member of the Department for Education and chairman of its Academies Board from 2013 to 2015. He was appointed lead non-executive board member of the Ministry of Justice in July 2015.
Agnew is a board member of the Education Policy Institute, a Westminster-based research institute.
He was created Baron Agnew of Oulton, of Oulton in the county of Norfolk, on 19 October 2017. Sitting with the Conservative Party group in the House of Lords. He was appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the School System, in the Department for Education on 28 September 2017 and became Minister of State for the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury on 14 February 2020.

Personal life

Agnew donated a total of £134,000 to the Conservative Party between 2007 and 2009.

Honours

Agnew was appointed a deputy lieutenant of Norfolk in 2013. He was made a Knight Bachelor in the 2015 New Year Honours 'for services to education'.