Department appoints business sectors head as government’s youngest permanent secretary

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Sarah Munby has been named permanent secretary at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

Munby, who took up the role this week, has been the department’s director general for business sectors since last July.

At 38, she is understood to be the youngest perm sec in Whitehall.

Before joining the BEIS last year she spent 15 years at McKinsey, where she was a partner and led the management consultancy’s UK and Ireland strategy and corporate finance practice.

BEIS said in a statement that Munby had “worked with some of the UK’s largest companies to change their strategic direction, and led much of McKinsey’s work on productivity across the UK economy”.

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She takes charge of a department that employs 3,000 civil servants, and has responsibility for a number of tech-related policy areas, including research and innovation.

The Industrial Strategy that BEIS is charged with implementing also features Artificial Intelligence and Data as one of its four central ‘grand challenges’. To help meet this challenge, BEIS is also tasked with delivering the policies and initiatives set out in the £1bn AI Sector Deal agreed by government two years ago.

Munby’s appointment comes three months after the department signed a deal to pay executive search company Russell Reynolds Associates up to £63,000 to fill the post.

The new perm sec succeeds Alex Chisholm, who was promoted to civil service chief operating officer in April. Sam Beckett has been acting perm sec since then, and will provide support to ensure a “smooth transition”, BEIS said.

Cabinet secretary Sir Mark Sedwill said Munby had been “instrumental in supporting businesses to help them prepare for exiting the EU and in responding to Covid-19, and brings with her a wealth of experience from her time as a partner at McKinsey”.

Sedwill added that Beckett had provided “exceptionally strong leadership” to the department since Chisholm’s departure.

Business secretary Alok Sharma said the appointment was “very good news for the department and for this government”.

“Sarah is an outstanding public servant who has already made a significant contribution to the work of the department,” he said.