It’s mine all mine: Shriti the Shriek’s £1m pay day
A CONTROVERSIAL former economic adviser to Gordon Brown will see her corporate pay packet climb to almost £1m after receiving a promotion on the board of the world’s largest mining company.
Baroness Vadera, a former cabinet minister, was yesterday promoted to the position of senior non-executive director at BHP Billiton following the death of the role’s previous occupant, Sir John Buchanan.
Vadera has sat on BHP’s board since 2011 and attends the miner’s risk and audit committee.
The promotion will see the peer’s pay rise £30,000 to £221,000 as a result of taking on the position of senior director.
It takes her accumulated haul from a number of part-time jobs to £967,000.
An abrupt management style earned her the nickname ‘Shriti the Shriek’.
She is already the chairman of Santander in the UK, and has a seat on the board of drugs giant AstraZeneca.
Her role at the helm of Santander earns her £650,000 a year, while she is paid £95,000 to sit on the board of AstraZeneca.
The promotion makes her one of the most senior and most influential figures in the City, even though she does not oversee the day-to-day running of any individual company. Shriti Vadera divided opinion during her political years.
She was appointed as an adviser to Brown, then chancellor, in 1999, and worked in the Treasury with him for almost a decade, rising to become one of the most trusted economic voices within Labour.
Once Brown become prime minister, she was elevated to the Lords in order to be eligible for a ministerial post. Vadera was appointed as a minister in 2007, but quit the Government just a year after the financial crash.
The former investment banker was criticised in January 2009 after claiming there were ‘green shoots’ in Britain’s economy on a day where stock markets plunged and it emerged that 4,000 extra UK jobs were facing the axe.
Since leaving Government, and after taking on a role advising the G20, Vadera has re-invented herself as a company director and advisor.
Last year she became the first woman to chair a UK bank after being promoted at Santander.