About Jo Johnson
Joseph Edmund Johnson, Baron Johnson of Marylebone (born 23 December 1971) is a British politician and peer who was Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation from 2015 to 2018, and from July to September 2019. A member of the Conservative Party, he was Member of Parliament (MP) for Orpington from 2010 to 2019. He currently sits in the House of Lords. His older brother, Boris Johnson, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom between 2019 and 2022. Johnson was appointed Director of the Number 10 Policy Unit in 2013 by Prime Minister David Cameron. He became Minister of State for the Cabinet Office in 2014 and Universities Minister in 2015. Following the January 2018 cabinet reshuffle, Johnson served as Minister of State for Transport and Minister for London; he resigned in November the same year, citing the failure of the Brexit negotiations to achieve what had been promised by the Vote Leave campaign and his wish to campaign for a referendum on the Brexit withdrawal agreement. In July 2019, he became part of his brother's Cabinet, again as Minister of State for Universities. Johnson and his brother became the third set of brothers to have served simultaneously in Cabinet – following Edward and Oliver Stanley in 1938, and David and Ed Miliband in 2007 – with Johnson being the first to serve as the brother of an incumbent prime minister. In September 2019, he resigned from the Cabinet and announced that he would stand down as an MP at the 2019 United Kingdom general election. In July 2020, he was elevated to the House of Lords in the 2019 Dissolution Honours. He is Chairman of the House of Lords Select Committee on Education for 11–16 year olds. Since leaving Government, Johnson has focused on the role of technology in widening access to education. He was appointed non-executive chairman at Tes in December 2019. He is also now chairman of Access Creative College, the largest independent provider of further education and training for the creative industries, and of FutureLearn, the global digital learning platform. He is also a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, and President's Professorial Fellow at King's College London. He has since returned to his work as a journalist at outlets including the Financial Times. Johnson resigned his directorship after 8 months service, at Elara Capital PLC on the 1 February 2023. His resignation statement, (by email) acknowledged recognition that his former role "requires greater domain expertise in specialised areas of financial regulation than I anticipated and, accordingly, I have resigned from the board."
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.