YouGov CEO to Leave if Elected as Tory MP

YouGov co-founder and CEO Nadhim Zahawi is preparing to step down from his role, after being selected to stand as the parliamentary candidate for the safe Conservative Party seat of Stratford-on-Avon in the forthcoming general election.

Chief Innovation Officer and co-founder Stephan Shakespeare will today resume his original role as Joint CEO, and will become sole CEO on the date that the general election is called.

Should he be elected as a Member of Parliament, Zahawi will step down as CEO and resign from the Board of YouGov.

Chairman Roger Parry explained that there will be a short transition period, and when the election campaign officially starts, Zahawi will hand over all remaining executive tasks to Shakespeare.

During their careers, both Zahawi and Shakespeare have been directly involved in politics. Zahawi spent 12 years as a councillor with the London Borough of Wandsworth, and also attempted to become the Conservative candidate for Devizes and Suffolk.

Shakespeare, who owns British political website ConservativeHome, was a Conservative candidate for Colchester in the 1997 general election.

The pair met while working on Jeffrey Archer's failed campaign to become London mayor. Frustrated that poll results were taking so long to come back, they set up online market research agency YouGov, to provide instant polling response.

Last year, YouGov UK CEO Tim Britton told DRNO the firm was conducting an internal review of the business in response to declining profits. By October, turnover had increased 10% to £44.3m, in a year Zahawi described as 'very challenging for the research industry as a whole'.

Web site: www.yougov.com .