Nathanael Ming-Yan Wei, Baron Wei (; born 19 January 1977), also known as Nat Wei, is an English social entrepreneur with an interest in social reform. He is the first British-born person of Hong Kong origin to have become a member of the House of Lords, sitting as a Conservative, and was the youngest member of the House from 2010 to 2016. He was also previously an adviser to the UK Government on their Big Society project.
Lord Wei is the founding partner of the Shaftesbury Partnership, the founder of Maker Life, a member of the founding team of Teach First and a former adviser at Absolute Return For Kids. He is also a former fellow of the Young Foundation. and World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. Lord Wei had also served as the Chairman of the Conservative Friends of the Chinese, but stepped down in August 2020.
Early life
Lord Wei is the son of Hong Kong parents with paternal ethnic roots in Zhongshan.
Education
Lord Wei was educated at the Sir Frank Markham Community School, a state comprehensive school in Milton Keynes (since closed, and replaced by the Milton Keynes Academy on the same site), where some of the pupils snorted cocaine and even burned down a wing of the school, and bullied him for taking his studies seriously. However, in a later account of his school life, Wei appeared to contradict this account, stating that as he 'got good grades, but was also sporty', he was never targeted or bullied. The only pupil from his school year to attend the University of Oxford, he studied Modern Languages at Jesus College.
Life and career
After graduating from Jesus College, Oxford, Wei worked at McKinsey & Company for three years, where he came to know Brett Wigdortz, who founded Teach First in 2002. In 2006, after three years at Teach First and a short stint in social venture capital, Wei joined the children's charity Absolute Return for Kids (ARK) where he helped to set up Future Leaders, a programme seeking to attract, develop and place high-potential teachers and future leaders of urban schools.
Founding the Shaftesbury Partnership
Around the same time as helping to set up Future Leaders, in early 2006, Wei founded the Shaftesbury Partnership, an organisation which seeks to emulate the great social reformers of the Victorian era by creating scalable social reforms. The Shaftesbury Partnership are currently working on a number of projects around housing, unemployment and healthcare. Through the Shaftesbury Partnership, Wei co-founded The Challenge Network, an independent charity which exists to "inspire and connect people to strengthen their community". The Challenge Network runs a two-month civic service programme called The Challenge which has attracted strong interest from both government and opposition.
In 2011, the Shaftesbury Partnership working with Johnson & Johnson and Queens Nursing Institute and Buckinghamshire New University piloted NurseFirst – a clinicians in the community development programme to produce a network of innovators who can create real change for patients, people and communities. In 2013, a report on the pilot, 2 years on, concluded that first cohort of clinicians showed quantitative and qualitative improvements in their confidence, their leadership skills, their ability to innovate and their ability to make clinical innovation happen. They produced financially sustainable business plans for £1.2 million of cash releasing savings over 3 years. The programme is now being scaled up.
Social reform
On 18 May 2010 at the launch of the New Coalition Government policies on Big Society to a group of community leaders, Lord Wei was appointed as an unpaid Government Adviser on Big Society. He was based at the Office for Civil Society in the Cabinet Office where he worked one day a week, and advised the Government on all aspects of taking forward the Big Society and driving implementation across government. At the launch event, the Prime Minister, David Cameron, announced that Wei would also be appointed a life peer. He was introduced in the House of Lords on 3 June 2010 as Baron Wei, of Shoreditch in the London Borough of Hackney. He is the third person of Chinese ethnic origin to become a member of the House of Lords, after Baroness Dunn (who is not domiciled in the UK) and the late Lord Chan; the third person of Hong Kong ancestry to become a House of Lords member, after Baroness Dunn and the late Lord Kadoorie; and the first-ever member of Chinese origin to be British-born. He is also one of the youngest people to have been made a life peer, at the age of 33.