Owen Smith

Owen Smith (born 2 May 1970) is a British lobbyist and former Labour Party politician. Smith was Member of Parliament (MP) for Pontypridd from 2010 to 2019.

After graduating from the University of Sussex, Smith worked as a radio and television producer for the BBC for a decade, then as a special adviser for Welsh Secretary Paul Murphy, and as a political lobbyist for Pfizer and Amgen before being elected to the House of Commons. Smith went on to serve as Shadow Welsh Secretary under Ed Miliband from 2012 until 2015, and then as Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary under Jeremy Corbyn from 2015 until he resigned in June 2016.

On 13 July 2016, he contested the leadership of the Labour Party and was defeated. Following the 2017 general election, Corbyn appointed Smith as Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Corbyn sacked him from the Labour frontbench in March 2018 after he publicly called for a referendum on the final Brexit deal, a position that was against Labour policy of the time. Smith did not stand for reelection in 2019.

In 2020, after leaving Parliament, he resumed his lobbying career when he joined pharmaceutical company Bristol Myers Squibb as their UK government relations director, eventually being promoted to Vice President and General Manager of their Australia and New Zealand division in 2024. Provided by Wikipedia