Seema Kennedy

Seema Kennedy OBE
Official portrait, 2020
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Immigration and Future Borders
In office 26 July 2019 – 16 December 2019
Prime Minister	Boris Johnson
Preceded by	Caroline Nokes
Succeeded by	Kevin Foster
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Public Health and Primary Care
In office 4 April 2019 – 26 July 2019
Prime Minister	Theresa May
Preceded by	Steve Brine
Succeeded by	Jo Churchill
Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Prime Minister
In office 27 June 2017 – 4 April 2019
Prime Minister	Theresa May
Preceded by	George Hollingbery
Succeeded by	Andrew Bowie
Member of Parliament for South Ribble
In office 7 May 2015 – 6 November 2019
Preceded by	Lorraine Fullbrook
Succeeded by	Katherine Fletcher
Personal details
Born	Seema Louise Ghiassi (1974-10-06) 6 October 1974 (age 49) Blackburn, Lancashire, England
Political party	Conservative
Children	3
Alma mater	Pembroke College, Cambridge
Website	Official website

Seema Louise Ghiassi Kennedy OBE (née Ghiassi, Persian: سیما غیاثی;^[1] born 6 October 1974) is a British Conservative Party politician who served as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at both the Department of Health and Social Care and the Home Office in 2019. She was the Member of Parliament (MP) for South Ribble in Lancashire from 2015 to 2019, and also served as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Prime Minister from 2017 to 2019. She was the first female MP of Iranian heritage to take a seat in the House of Commons.

Ghiassi attended Westholme School, and studied French and Persian at Pembroke College, Cambridge. She qualified as a commercial property solicitor, and worked for Slaughter and May, and Bevan Brittan, before working for her family's commercial property business Tustin Developments Ltd.