Euan Blair

Euan Anthony Blair (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 Sir Tony Blair and lawyer Cherie Blair.

Early life

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.

Education

Blair was educated at St Joan of Arc Roman Catholic Primary School 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.

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.

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. 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, and offers from Harvard's Kennedy School and Yale.

In early 2006, Blair had two weeks of work experience with the London public relations company Finsbury Limited. In 2008, he 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.

Media coverage

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.

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. He apologised for the incident, and was neither prosecuted nor formally cautioned.

In 2001, Blair 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. He later took a place at Bristol University instead.

In 2006, it was reported in '' The Sunday Times'' that Blair had worked as a runner for the film '' V for Vendetta'' when it was filmed around the Palace of Westminster in summer 2005. 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. 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

In 2016, Blair co-founded WhiteHat, a company providing apprenticeships for school leavers, with his friend Sophie Adelman. WhiteHat was rebranded to Multiverse in 2021. The EdTech start-up provides apprenticeships in the UK and USA, specialising in data and technology. Multiverse delivers nine apprenticeship programmes that range from Level 3 (the equivalent of three 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.

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. In June 2022, Multiverse raised $220 million in a Series D raise at a valuation of $1.7 billion.

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

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

Personal life

Blair was baptised and brought up as Roman Catholic.

In 2005, Blair was romantically linked to Luciana Berger by the press. Following such reports, 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."

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

References

External links

* Euan Blair a
LinkedIn
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Blair, Euan
1984 births
Living people
Alumni of the University of Bristol
Yale University alumni
Children of prime ministers of the United Kingdom
English people of Scottish descent
English Roman Catholics
People from London
Euan Blair