Taiwo Owatemi

Taiwo Owatemi was raised in London by a single mother after her father died due to a shortage of organ donors when she was just six years old. Owatemi has cited the challenges she experienced in her upbringing as informing her current political persuasions. Owatemi studied pharmacy at the University of Kent before working in the NHS, fulfilling a long-held personal ambition, and rising to the rank of senior oncology pharmacist, specialising in cancer and palliative care. She won a parliamentary internship, delivered by the Social Mobility Foundation and gained work experience in the office of Oliver Letwin. Owatemi was later vice chair of the Young Fabian Health Network and spent time on the youth board of Oxfam. She has been a school governor for a primary school since 2016. Owatemi is reluctant to identify herself with a specific Labour faction, but does identify as a proud trade unionist and Labour loyalist. Her majority is just 208. Owatemi has been a member of APPGs on alternative investment management, Erasmus, knife crime and violence reduction, Nigeria, pharmacy, Thalassaemia and the West Midlands.