Nick Boles
Biography
Nick Boles served as Minister of State jointly for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Education from July 2014 until July 2016. Previously he served as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Planning from September 2012 until July 2014. Nick was elected as the Conservative MP for Grantham and Stamford in May 2010.
Education
Nick went to school at Winchester College before going on to study politics, philosophy and economics at Magdalen College, Oxford. He went on to do a Masters in public policy at Harvard University in the US after winning a Kennedy Scholarship.
Political career
In November 2010, he was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to Nick Gibb MP, the Minister of State for Schools. In 2007, he was appointed as Head of David Cameron’s Implementation Team, which drew up the Conservative Party’s detailed plans for government. He was elected to Westminster Council in 1998 and became Chairman of Housing. He was chairman of the Housing Committee from 1999 to 2001, before stepping down in 2002.
Nick is also the founder, and a former director, of Policy Exchange, a centre right policy research institute.
Career outside politics
Nick spent the first 10 years of his career in business. He worked as a merchant banker for a few years in Germany, Russia and Eastern Europe, helping state owned industries prepare for private ownership. He and a friend later formed a small group of companies supplying the DIY industry.