Euan Blair

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Euan Blair

MBE
Cherie and Euan Blair -Red Bull Air Race -London -28July2007 (2).jpg
Euan (left) and Cherie Blair with the pilot Nigel Lamb (in yellow) at the Red Bull Air Race in London, 2007
Born
Euan Anthony Blair

(1984-01-19) 19 January 1984 (age 38)
London, England
Alma mater
Spouse(s)
Suzanne Ashman
​
(m. 2013)​
Parents
Relatives

Euan Anthony Blair MBE (born 19 January 1984) is the co-founder and chief executive of the apprenticeships company Multiverse. He is the eldest son of the former British prime minister Tony Blair and the lawyer Cherie Blair.

Early life[edit]

Blair was born on 19 January 1984 and was named Euan after two people: the artist Euan Uglow and a school friend of Tony Blair.[1]

Education[edit]

Blair was educated at St Joan of Arc Roman Catholic Primary School[2] and the London Oratory School, a highly regarded Roman Catholic grant-aided school in Fulham, London. At the Oratory he was appointed one of the four deputy head pupils for his final year at the school.[3][4]

Blair graduated with a B.A. in Ancient History from the University of Bristol in 2005, having attained a 2:1 (upper second class) honours degree.[5][6]

Blair spent three months as an unpaid intern with the Republican David Dreier and Republican Party staff of the Rules Committee of the United States House of Representatives.[7] He then worked in the office of the "Blue Dog" Democrat Jane Harman. Blair cut short his internship with Harman in May 2006 after a fortnight; a statement from Harman's office cited Blair's graduate school plans,[8] and offers from Harvard's Kennedy School and Yale.[9]

In early 2006, Blair had two weeks of work experience with the London public relations company Finsbury Limited.[10][11] In 2008, Blair graduated from Yale University's MacMillan Center with an M.A. in International Relations. He accepted this place after being awarded a £50,000 ($100,000) scholarship based on merit.[12][13]

Media coverage[edit]

When the Millennium Dome was in the planning stages, Tony Blair proposed that the Dome must pass the "Euan test" and satisfy what his 13-year-old would want on a day out.[14]

The incident for which Blair first attracted significant attention was in 2000 when, aged 16, he was found by police intoxicated in Leicester Square, having spent the night with friends celebrating the completion of his GCSE exams.[15] Euan apologised for the incident, and was neither prosecuted nor formally cautioned.[15][16]

In 2001, Blair was applied to Trinity College, Oxford. His parents made a formal complaint to the Press Complaints Commission that media reports represented an intrusion, and the complaint was upheld. Blair later took a place at Bristol University instead.[17]

In 2006, it was reported in The Sunday Times that Blair had worked as a runner[disambiguation needed] for the film V for Vendetta when it was filmed around the Palace of Westminster in the summer of 2005.[18] Both the Conservative MP David Davies and the magazine Private Eye suggested that Blair's involvement was a contributing factor to the granting of access to the location for filming.[19] However, Nick Daubeny, the location manager for the film, denied that Blair's involvement had helped in any way, saying that Blair had been offered the job after they had worked together during the filming of Band of Brothers in 2001.

Apprenticeships company[edit]

In 2016 Blair co-founded WhiteHat, a company providing apprenticeships for school leavers, with his friend Sophie Adelman.[20] WhiteHat rebranded to Multiverse in 2021.[21] The EdTech start-up provides apprenticeships in the UK and USA, specialising in data and tech. Multiverse delivers 9 apprenticeship programs that range from Level 3 (the equivalent of two A-Levels), to Level 6 (the equivalent of a university degree). The company was judged to be Outstanding in its most recent inspection by Ofsted.[citation needed]

In 2018, the company announced a $4 million seed round led by the Silicon Valley investor Lightspeed Venture Partners. In September 2021, Multiverse raised $130 million in a Series C raise at a valuation of $875 million.[22] In June 2022, Multiverse raised $220 million in a Series D raise at a valuation of $1.7 billion.[23]

The company reported a loss of £10.9 million in the year to 31 March 2021, on revenues of £10.1 million.[24][25]

Blair was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2022 Birthday Honours for services to education.[26]

Personal life[edit]

Blair was baptised and brought up as Roman Catholic.[27][28]

In 2005, Euan Blair was romantically linked to Luciana Berger by the press.[29] Following such reports, Euan Blair sent a fax from Labour party headquarters to national newspapers saying "I want to make it clear that Luciana Berger is not, and has never been, my girlfriend."[30]

In 2013 Blair married his long-term girlfriend Suzanne Ashman at All Saints' Church, Wotton Underwood, Buckinghamshire.[31]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Blair, Cherie (12 May 2008). "The night I hated Tony – 1984: our first child, Euan, is born". The Times. London. Retrieved 4 December 2009.
  2. ^ Hackett, Geraldine (9 December 1994). "Blairs put Labour in opt-out spotlight". Times Educational Supplement. Retrieved 4 December 2009.[dead link]
  3. ^ "Blair's son is to be deputy head boy". BBC News. 31 May 2001. Retrieved 4 December 2009.
  4. ^ Woodward, Will (1 June 2001). "Euan Blair elected deputy head boy". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 4 December 2009.
  5. ^ "Blairs watch eldest son graduate". BBC. 18 July 2005.
  6. ^ Euan Blair's holiday ends in pain and a hospital bed[dead link]
  7. ^ Argetsinger, Amy; Roberts, Roxanne (24 February 2006). "Euan Blair: A Proper English Gentleman". The Washington Post. Retrieved 5 December 2009.
  8. ^ "University confirms Blair's admission". Yale Daily News. 1 June 2006. Retrieved 3 December 2009.
  9. ^ Argetsinger, Amy; Roberts, Roxanne (19 May 2006). "Euan Blair, Burning Bridges in D.C.?". The Washington Post. Retrieved 5 December 2009.
  10. ^ "The PR tycoon, a private dinner and PM's meeting with Euro lobby group". The Guardian. 17 September 2006.
  11. ^ Kellaway, Lucy (23 January 2006). "Why work experience doesn't pay". Financial Times. Retrieved 5 December 2009.[dead link]
  12. ^ Patterson, Christina (30 May 2006). "No wonder God's been keeping a low profile". The Independent. London. Retrieved 7 November 2008.
  13. ^ Johnson, Rachel (23 May 2006). "It's not how Euan got his scholarship, but why". The Telegraph. London. Retrieved 7 November 2008.
  14. ^ Storer, Jackie (18 January 2006). "Blair's boy and a question of privacy". BBC News. Retrieved 4 December 2009.
  15. ^ a b "Blair's son 'drunk and incapable'". BBC. Retrieved 3 June 2022.
  16. ^ "Final warning for Blair's son". BBC. Retrieved 3 June 2022.
  17. ^ Sparrow, Andrew; Savill, Richard (24 August 2002). "Euan Blair misses out on place at Oxford". The Telegraph. London. Retrieved 17 February 2009.
  18. ^ Taher, Abul (1 January 2006). "Euan Blair helps to blow up parliament". The Times. London. Retrieved 5 December 2009.
  19. ^ Private Eye. Issue 1153 (3 March 2006)
  20. ^ Neate, Rupert (1 June 2022). "Euan Blair: from PM's son to £700m business and an MBE". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 June 2022.
  21. ^ "UK's WhiteHat rebrands as Multiverse, raises $44M to build tech apprenticeships in the US". TechCrunch. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
  22. ^ "Multiverse, the tech-focused apprenticeship startup, nabs $130M at an $875M valuation". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2 June 2022.
  23. ^ "Apprenticeship Startup Multiverse Raises $220 Million To Solve Tech's Talent Shortage". Forbes. Retrieved 9 June 2022.
  24. ^ "Euan Blair's apprenticeship firm Multiverse valued at £1.4bn". The Times. Retrieved 9 June 2022. (subscription required)
  25. ^ "Tony Blair's son Euan on way to billionaire status as Multiverse firm worth £1.35bn". Evening Standard. Retrieved 9 June 2022. (subscription required)
  26. ^ Davies, Caroline (1 June 2022). "Boris Johnson critic Jeremy Wright knighted in birthday honours". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 June 2022.
  27. ^ "Tony Blair could become Roman Catholic in time to celebrate Christmas Mass". Archived from the original on 8 October 2011. Retrieved 22 December 2007.
  28. ^ "Ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair received into Catholic Church". Catholic News. 24 December 2007. Retrieved 17 February 2009.
  29. ^ Sarah Cassidy (27 March 2010). "Girlfriend of Euan Blair quits NUS in racism row". The Independent. London. Retrieved 4 April 2010.
  30. ^ Cahal Milmo (21 April 2005). "The NUS officer, the PM's son, and a love affair that never was". The Independent. London. Retrieved 4 April 2010.
  31. ^ "Tony Blair's son Euan weds girlfriend Suzanne Ashman". BBC News. 14 September 2013. Retrieved 2 June 2022.

External links[edit]

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