Oona King

In 2019, she left Google to join Snap, Inc. as their first VP of diversity and inclusion. King was also listed in the annual Powerlist as one of the most influential people of African/African-Caribbean descent in the UK.

In 2016, she took a leave of absence from the Lords to take a role as YouTube Diversity Director.

In 2012, King was elected to the Progress strategy board as a parliamentarian.

On 26 January 2011, King was created a life peer as Baroness King of Bow, of Bow in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. She was introduced in the House of Lords on 31 January 2011, where she sits on the Labour benches. When her appointment was announced in November 2010, she resigned as a constituency representative to the Labour National Executive Committee, to which she had recently been elected, before attending her first meeting. Upon taking her seat in the Lords, King stood down from her Diversity Officer role with Channel 4.

In 2010, King unsuccessfully challenged Ken Livingstone for the Labour Party nomination in the 2012 election for Mayor of London. King's first campaign speech, at Haverstock school, focused on "engagement with young people" as a way of reducing knife crime and helping them achieve their potential. In June 2010, she was shortlisted for the nomination. In an interview with The Independent, King emphasised both her experience of "pushing and pulling the levers of power", i.e. her experience of negotiating with top ministers, and also her willingness to work with political opponents.

Her opponent, Ken Livingstone, accused her of using inappropriate methods of obtaining email addresses of Labour Party supporters; King denied the allegation. King had the backing of Neil Kinnock, Ben Bradshaw, and Alan Johnson. On 24 September 2010, Livingstone won the nomination.

In January 2009, King was appointed head of diversity at Channel 4. Before relocating to the United States she lived in Mile End, in a converted pub, in the East End of London.

In 2008, Prime Minister Gordon Brown appointed her to act as his Senior Policy Adviser on Equalities and Diversity and Faith.

King has made appearances on television shows such as This Week, The Daily Politics, The All Star Talent Show and Have I Got News for You. She hosted a BBC Two documentary on Martin Luther King and the deep South entitled American Prophet, aired on 29 March 2008. She made appearances on the new comedic show Jews at Ten on Channel 4, 9 October 2012. In January 2013, she appeared on the skating show Dancing On Ice, being voted off 20 January.

In 2007, King published her autobiography, The Oona King Diaries: House Music.

King had said that she would remain in Bethnal Green and Bow with her constituency office funded from the GMB trade union, attempting to act as an unofficial MP. However, later in 2005, she began a career in the media, saying "I wanted to be an MP all my life, and when it didn't work, I thought, well then, I'll just have to go down a different path."

King supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which was controversial for her constituency's large Muslim population. King has said that she does not regret voting for the war in Iraq, "I could never have voted against getting rid of Saddam Hussein. He was responsible for the deaths of one million people." However, after seeing how poorly the United States had handled the crisis of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in New Orleans, she has conversely said that:

King served on the international development select committee, and as the Vice-Chair of the All-Parliamentary Group on Bangladesh. She was selected to second the Queen's Speech debate in November 2002, where she also discussed her views on genocide and a visit to Rwanda. King served as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and the Minister for e-commerce. In 2003 she was selected as one of "100 Great Black Britons".

She was a Labour Member of Parliament for Bethnal Green and Bow from 1997 until 2005, when she was defeated by George Galloway, the Respect Party candidate.

She was selected to represent the seat of Bethnal Green and Bow early in 1997. Peter Shore had announced his retirement early, but faction fighting in the constituency Labour Party led to party headquarters delaying the selection and imposing its own shortlist. Some leading candidates from the local Bangladeshi community were not included.

Winning the seat in 1997, King became the second black woman to be elected as a member of parliament, the first having been Diane Abbott. In her "truly first-class maiden speech", King described the racial abuse she and her family had suffered as a child. She referred to herself as "multi-ethnic", representing "a truly multicultural constituency where hardship and deprivation gave birth to Britain's greatest social reforms." She described William Beveridge and Clement Attlee, as "surrounded by an East End infant mortality rate of 55%" and said this led to social reforms, including the NHS. She emphasised a need for coherence in the strategy for eradicating poverty, and the importance of education in its elimination.

Before becoming a member of parliament, King was a researcher for the European Parliament. She also worked as a political assistant to Glyn Ford MEP, the Labour Party Leader in the European Parliament, and later Glenys Kinnock MEP. In 1995–97, she was a political organiser for the GMB Southern Region.

In 1994, King married Italian Tiberio Santomarco, while working for an MEP in Brussels. The couple have adopted three children, and have a fourth child born to a surrogate mother in 2013. She speaks Italian and French fluently.

In her first year as an undergraduate at University of York, King was briefly a member of the Socialist Workers Party. During her second year (1988–89), she gained a scholarship to the University of California, Berkeley and graduated with a first class honours Politics degree in 1990.

Oona Tamsyn King, Baroness King of Bow (born 22 October 1967) is a British Labour Party politician and former chief diversity officer of Channel 4.