Ex-Darktrace boss Poppy Gustafsson named UK investment minister

The Former CEO Of Darktrace

Poppy Gustafsson, the co-founder and former CEO of UK cybersecurity darling Darktrace, has been named Britain’s new minister of investment as the new Labour government looks to win favour with big business.

Gustafsson will head up the revamped Office for Investment as part of a wider “Whitehall shake-up” designed to bring more money to British shores, the government said.

The appointment of Poppy Gustafsson

The appointment no doubt comes as a relief for Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who struggled for months to fill the role. It also comes just days before the government’s international business summit on Monday, where Starmer will look to pitch the UK as “open for business.”

In September, Gustafsson left her long-standing position at Darktrace just before US equity firm Thoma Bravo acquired the company in a £4.2bn deal concluded earlier this month.

She co-founded Darktrace in 2013 alongside a team of mathematicians and intelligence experts from Invoke Capital, a VC fund owned…