Jeremy Lefroy was recently selected as Conservative Prospective Parliamentary Spokesman for Stafford at an open Primary in August.
Having started in motor manufacturing and then trained as a chartered accountant, Jeremy has worked in the coffee and cocoa industries for 20 years. He lived in Tanzania for 11 years until 2000 when he moved to Staffordshire. He was appointed by the Tanzanian Government as a Director of the Tanzania Coffee Board 1997-1999.
He has most recently been involved in establishing businesses in organic cocoa and speciality coffee from smallholder farmers. He is also working on the production of low cost ingredients for new-generation malaria treatments.
In 1996, he co-founded the ‘Training for Life’ programme for Tanzanian school leavers with the Anglican Church of Tanzania. With friends, he started Equity for Africa which provides equity-type funding for small/medium businesses in East Africa.
He was elected Councillor in the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme in 2003 and currently serves on the Cabinet in the new Conservative-Liberal Democrat administration. He is a governor of a Newcastle primary school which has just been saved from closure. He has been involved since July 2004 in the campaign against the M6 Expressway and organised the first public meeting on this in Newcastle.
He is married to Janet, a GP in Stoke-on-Trent, and they have two teenagers. His interests include tackling poverty through enterprise and fair trade, church and community work, playing and writing music, sport and hill walking.