In less than 48 hours of be­ing sworn in as the na­tion’s eighth Prime Min­is­ter, Stu­art Young has reshuf­fled the Cab­i­net, an­nounced sev­er­al plans for the coun­try, and shocked many by wast­ing no time in ring­ing the elec­tion bell.

But who is Stu­art Richard Young?

He was born on Feb­ru­ary 9, 1975, on Up­per Hen­ry Street, Port-of-Spain.

He is the el­dest of Richard and Priscil­la’s three chil­dren.

He at­tend­ed St Mary’s Col­lege (CIC) and grad­u­at­ed from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Not­ting­ham, where he stud­ied law.

He has two sons, Er­ic and Ethan.

He is an at­tor­ney by pro­fes­sion and is not mar­ried.

He was ad­mit­ted to the bar in T&T, Eng­land and Wales, the Com­mon­wealth of Do­mini­ca, and An­tigua and Bar­bu­da.

He is a mem­ber of the Ho­n­ourable So­ci­ety of Gray’s Inn in the Unit­ed King­dom. He has served as a mem­ber of the Coun­cil of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion and as a mem­ber of the Leg­isla­tive Com­mit­tee of Am­cham.

On March 18, 2014, the then 39-year-old at­tor­ney en­tered the Up­per House for the very first time as a tem­po­rary Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor for the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).

Fast for­ward 11 years lat­er to the ex­act date, the 50-year-old fa­ther of two now stands as the sec­ond youngest Prime Min­is­ter of the Re­pub­lic of T&T. Patrick Man­ning was the youngest to as­sume the role at age 45.

In a doc­u­men­tary on the new leader re­leased by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Young spoke about his fam­i­ly’s her­itage. “My fa­ther’s fam­i­ly are Chi­nese. Both of his par­ents came from Chi­na. They by then had mi­grat­ed with his two sis­ters to Cana­da. Al­most an­nu­al­ly we would go up to Cana­da to vis­it them, and that gave me the ex­po­sure in­to the Chi­nese cul­ture. But, even when we were there, we would go and ex­pe­ri­ence oth­er cul­tures. We would go in­to the In­di­an restau­rants, the African restau­rants, and these types of things, so I have to say that I’ve al­ways had a wide ap­pre­ci­a­tion of dif­fer­ent cul­tures, dif­fer­ent races, and dif­fer­ent re­li­gions.”

Af­ter prac­tis­ing law for over a decade—rep­re­sent­ing unions such as the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers Union (CWU) and Steel Work­ers Union of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SWUTT)—in the Com­mis­sions of En­quiry, in­clud­ing the Pi­ar­co Com­mis­sion of En­quiry, the Con­struc­tion Sec­tor, and the Hin­du Cred­it Union and CLF, then-prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley brought Young in­to the po­lit­i­cal are­na.

In Sep­tem­ber 2015, Young was elect­ed Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment (MP) for Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West, a post he holds to this day.

He was al­so ap­point­ed a Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs.

In March 2016, he got the added re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.

In June 2018, he al­so be­came Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

By Au­gust 2018, he was ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, and Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, earn­ing him the ti­tle of “Min­is­ter of Every­thing.”

On April 19, 2021, he was ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries af­ter Franklin Khan died.

Eight months ago, Young be­gan shad­ow­ing Dr Row­ley as act­ing prime min­is­ter, a role for­mer­ly held by Colm Im­bert.

Since then, spec­u­la­tions arose that he would even­tu­al­ly be tak­ing over the par­ty.

On Jan­u­ary 3, Row­ley an­nounced the end of his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer, re­veal­ing he would step down be­fore the end of his term.

On Jan­u­ary 6, the PNM par­lia­men­tary cau­cus picked Young as Row­ley’s re­place­ment with an 11-9 vic­to­ry against Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Pen­ne­lope Beck­les.

On Mon­day, he was of­fi­cial­ly sworn in as the na­tion’s eighth prime min­is­ter.

But apart from pol­i­tics, what else does the na­tion know about Young out­side the Par­lia­ment?

Young said he was al­so once a sports­man.

He said dur­ing his school days, he was in­volved in com­pet­i­tive swim­ming, cy­cling, and run­ning, which led to him ex­celling at triathlons.

He al­so played rug­by and was part of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Sea Scouts.

The new Prime Min­is­ter said the steel­pan was one of the things that he trea­sures.

His favourite steel­band is Rene­gades Steel Or­ches­tra, but he al­so loves Phase II Pan Groove.

In the doc­u­men­tary, Young added, “The steel­band move­ment is an es­cape for me ... I love the whole at­mos­phere of pan. I love be­ing in a pa­n­yard be­cause it re­al­ly is a safe place. It is where we are all equal. You re­al­ly have a sense of equal­i­ty. You see all types of peo­ple beat­ing the pan, but you see the abil­i­ty to go down on the track, the abil­i­ty to mix with the pan move­ment, the abil­i­ty to push the pan on stage, and to see your side per­form on stage. To me, that is mag­ic. That is one of the things now at this stage in my life that I hold on to and trea­sure.”

And like most Trin­bag­o­ni­ans, Young said he grew up eat­ing dou­bles, and he loves aloo pie and ka­chori with chut­ney.