At just 42, Rishi Sunak is the youngest prime minister in modern times - taking the record held by his old boss David Cameron, who was 43 when appointed.
His rise to the top has been fast. He only became MP for Richmond in North Yorkshire in 2015 and joined the Cabinet in 2019.
"I showed up and people were surprised," Mr Sunak said about being selected to represent Richmond, with its overwhelming white population. But his "Yorkshire values" of hard work resonated with people and he won them over by showing an interest in what mattered to them, he said. Seven years on and he has made history as the UK's first British Asian prime minister.
Mr Sunak joined Boris Johnson's cabinet in 2019 as chief treasury to the secretary working with chancellor Sajid Javid, and his career rocketed from there.
A self-confessed "huge Star Wars fan" with a sizeable collection of lightsabers, he tweeted a photo of himself and his "Jedi Master" Mr Javid at a screening of The Rise of Skywalker in 2019. A few months later, the apprentice became the master when he replaced Mr Javid as chancellor, and was plunged into pandemic crisis planning and budgeting.
For quite a few people, Mr Sunak appeared to be a reassuringly steady hand at the tiller as chancellor.
When he pledged to do "whatever it takes" to help people through the pandemic in the spring of 2020 - and unveiled support worth £350bn - his personal poll ratings went through the roof.
But the UK continued to be buffeted by stormy economic weather, and Mr Sunak himself had to deal with the fallout of being fined by police for breaking lockdown rules in Downing Street in June 2020.
In July, he resigned from the cabinet, saying he felt his own approach to the economy was "fundamentally too different" to that of the PM, Boris Johnson. The move was instrumental in ousting Mr Johnson, which some of the former PM's allies will not have forgotten.
Just 16 weeks later, he has become leader himself.
His appointment as PM came on the day millions celebrated Diwali, and as a practising Hindu he has said one of his proudest career moments was lighting ceremonial diyas (oil lamps) outside 11 Downing Street while chancellor. A traditional Hindu red bracelet, meant for good luck and protection, could be seen on his wrist when he posed on the steps of 10 Downing Street for the first time as UK leader.
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