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At grammar school in the suburbs of Cardiff, Eli Sheldon Mills told his history teacher that he wanted to study law at King’s College London and become a lawyer in the capital.
The teacher, whom Mills declined to identify, replied: “You’ll never go to King’s College, Sheldon.”
Mills went to King’s College, where he did his undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, becoming only the second person from his school to go to university. He then became a solicitor working in competition law for major City law firms, before holding senior roles at regulators the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) ).
Mills is now believed to be the favorite to become CMA CEO. However, some ministers are said to be reluctant to sign off on his appointment to the £195,000-a-year job because of his support for transgender and queer people through his role as chair of trustees for Stonewall, the LGBTQ+ charity.
According to the Telegraph, a government source said: “We want to avoid a politically controversial candidate like Sheldon. We just convinced them [the CMA] to stop paying money to Stonewall. The last thing we need is a CEO who is a paid supporter. We won’t have it.”
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, which is overseeing the appointment, declined to comment. A spokesman declined to distance the department from comments made available to the Telegraph.
Mills is running for the post against CMA’s current interim CEO, Sarah Cardell. But Cardell, who previously served as one of the CMA’s top lawyers, is also reported to face opposition from Tories who worry she will be too involved.
The concern is clearly that she will continue the trend set under outgoing boss Andrea Koscelli, who has targeted a range of businesses across industries, including immigration to technology and fashion.
Earlier this year, the watchdog raided the offices of outsourcing company Mitie over a contract linked to immigration removal centres, and a month earlier fined JD Sports and Footasylum £5m for anti-competitive behavior including secret meetings between their chairmen in a car park in Manchester. It followed an order that forced Facebook’s parent company to sell their GIF-making website and fines against drug companies for overcharging the NHS for tablets.
Mills has already shown he is prepared to take a tough line against wayward firms and on Tuesday morning answered questions from reporters about the launch of the FCA’s new so-called consumer duty, which makes senior bosses responsible for protecting ordinary retail investors. It is one of the biggest projects he has overseen since his appointment as regulator in late 2020.
It made its mark last spring by banning so-called loyalty penalties in the insurance sector, meaning existing customers will no longer be charged more than new policyholders. The ban, considered Mills’ proudest achievement at the FCA to date, is expected to save consumers around £4.2bn over the next 10 years.
Mills, who is gay and black, is Stonewall’s longest-serving trustee, having joined in 2013 after attending the leadership program course while working at the OFT.
“LGBT equality is really personal to me,” he said in an interview with Stonewall when he was appointed chairman of the board in 2020. “For most of my life, I’ve dealt with feeling like I’m different from the rest of society.
“Being LGBT is part of it, but also because I come from a mixed background and was one of the first in my family to go to university. Trying to find my place in the world as an outsider taught me a lot, but it also took an incredible amount of energy.
“I want to do everything I can to make sure that LGBT people feel free to be themselves in all areas of their lives, all the time.”
Mills said his proudest moment at Stonewall was when the charity moved to fully support trans people. “When Stonewall moved to become trans-inclusive, that was a huge moment and I’m so grateful to have been a part of making it happen.”
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Mills said that growing up, he wasn’t worried about identifying as gay. “I was so out it was ridiculous,” he said in the BBC Wales documentary Black and Welsh in 2020. He said the black community supported him as a gay man and he didn’t feel homophobia from them at all. However, he suffered abuse from others and said it encouraged him in his career.
He said being underrated by his teacher and others since then has encouraged him. “It makes me sad,” he said. “Not just for me, really for all black guys, and that’s why I do the work at Stonewall, that’s why I’m a visible black role model in the professional work that I do.
“Role models don’t just have to be movie stars, singers or athletes. They should have role models who are politicians, lawyers, accountants, doctors, etc. Because these are the people who actually make up society.
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