Who Is Zia Yusuf? Reform UK Role, Background and Political Profile

Zia Yusuf is a British businessman and political organiser who became chairman of Reform UK in July 2024, shortly after the party won five seats at the general election. He is one of the highest-profile non-MP appointments in modern British party politics and the most significant British Muslim figure in a Reform-aligned role to date.

Background

Yusuf was born in Scotland to Sri Lankan Tamil immigrant parents. He was educated at the London School of Economics, where he read economics, and began his career in investment banking at Goldman Sachs in London.

Velocity Black

In 2014 Yusuf co-founded Velocity Black, a luxury concierge service that operated as a subscription app for high-net-worth members. The business raised significant venture-capital funding and was sold in 2023 to Capital One for a reported $300 million, making Yusuf one of the more successful British tech founders of the 2010s.

Move into politics

Yusuf donated to Reform UK ahead of the 2024 election and volunteered with the party's digital operation. After the election Nigel Farage announced him as the party's chairman, with a brief that included professionalising Reform UK's organisational structure, vetting candidates, and running an internal review of the candidate slate that had attracted controversy during the campaign.

Resignation and return

In June 2025 Yusuf briefly resigned the chairmanship after a disagreement with the parliamentary party over a policy position taken by a Reform MP. He returned to the party within days in a new role focused on data and the operational side of the party, with the chairmanship passed to a different figure. The episode was widely covered as illustrative of Reform UK's still-developing internal structures.

Why people search for him

Yusuf is the kind of British political figure who is well known to political journalists and almost unknown to the general public. Search interest spikes around any internal Reform UK story, around Farage television appearances, and around the periodic articles in the Sunday papers about who actually runs the party.