Penny Mordaunt

Why organisations work with Penny Mordaunt

• A former Cabinet minister with direct authority on three of the topics now sitting on most board agendas: defence, trade policy, and international development.
• Front-line experience of UK trade reorientation, including the country’s accession to CPTPP and bilateral economic agreements with US states, useful to companies modelling supply chain and market access decisions.
• Built and led the cross-government defensive cyber function in its early form, and rebuilt UK civil contingencies and resilience as Paymaster General. Practical credibility on national resilience, not commentary.
• Read by US and Commonwealth audiences as a serious British voice on the transatlantic relationship; now Chair of the Coalition for Global Prosperity, where her case is that aid and defence are part of national resilience, not philanthropy.
• A genuine speaker, not a politician reading remarks. Parliamentary Wit of the Year and Spectator Speech of the Year, with a global audience earned at the 2023 Coronation.

Biography highlights

• Former Secretary of State for Defence; first woman to hold the role.
• Former Secretary of State for International Development and UK Governor at the World Bank.
• Former Minister of State for Trade Policy; oversaw UK accession to CPTPP and bilateral economic agreements with US states.
• Former Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons; carried the Sword of State at the Coronation of King Charles III in 2023.
• Co-author of Greater: Britain After the Storm, winner of the 2021 Parliamentary Book Award.
• Appointed Chair of the Coalition for Global Prosperity in January 2025; made a Dame in the King’s Birthday Honours 2025.
• Honorary Captain, MCM2 Squadron, Royal Naval Reserve.

Biography

Trade, defence and development used to be three separate conversations inside government. They are now a single conversation, and most boards are catching up to it. The leaders who understand this best tend to be the ones who have held responsibility for all three.

Penny Mordaunt is one of a small group who has. She served fourteen years as MP for Portsmouth North, holding nine ministerial roles across four Cabinet posts. She was the first woman to serve as Secretary of State for Defence, ran the Department for International Development, and as Minister of State for Trade Policy oversaw the UK’s accession to the CPTPP and a series of economic agreements at US state level. As Paymaster General she rebuilt the UK’s civil contingencies and resilience capability, and built the first cross-government defensive cyber lead.

Her public profile is wider than Westminster. She carried the 17th-century Sword of State at the Coronation of King Charles III in 2023, the first woman to do so, and the role gave her a global audience that few former Cabinet ministers ever acquire. Her book Greater: Britain After the Storm, co-authored with Chris Lewis, won the 2021 Parliamentary Book Award and reached bestseller lists in the UK and US.

Since leaving Parliament in 2024 she has chaired the Coalition for Global Prosperity, where she argues the case for the transatlantic partnership and for treating development and defence as components of national resilience rather than discretionary spend. For corporate audiences, the value is the access to a former insider’s view of how trade policy, sanctions architecture and security commitments are actually made, and what changes when an election cycle turns over.

Key speaking topics

• UK trade policy, CPTPP and US state-level economic agreements
• Defence, security and the transatlantic relationship
• International development as national resilience
• Geopolitical risk and the future of the rules-based order
• Civil contingencies, cyber and national resilience
• Women in public leadership

Ideal for

• Board and C-suite audiences modelling geopolitical and trade exposure
• CFOs and strategy teams reassessing market access and supply chain decisions post-Brexit and post-CPTPP
• CISOs and risk officers working at the intersection of cyber, national security and corporate resilience
• Public affairs, government affairs and ESG leaders briefing on UK policy direction

Audience outcomes

• A clearer view of how UK and transatlantic policy choices translate into commercial and operational risk.
• A more accurate read of the post-Brexit trade architecture, including CPTPP and bilateral US engagement.
• A practical framing of national resilience that connects defence, cyber, supply chain and civil contingencies.
• An informed sense of where the UK government sees its own room for manoeuvre in a contested global order.