Liam Byrne was tipped as a potential Minister even before he entered the House of Commons, by Labour MPs who knew him from his work as an advisor to Tony Blair or party activist.
Currently he is a Minister of State in the Home Office, responsible for immigration, and Minister for the West Midlands - a new role designed to make him a high-profile champion for the region.
Born on October 2 1970, Mr Byrne was educated at Burnt Mill Comprehensive in Harlow, Essex. He studied at Manchester University and Harvard Business School, where he gained an MBA.
He was an adviser to Tony Blair in the year leading up to the 1997 General Election, when Labour was in opposition.
Mr Byrne is also the founder of the computer company e-Government Solutions Ltd, which provides information technology services to the public sector.
He became an MP in 2004 after veteran Labour MP Terry Davis announced he was quitting his Hodge Hill seat to become Secretary General of the Council of Europe.
Mr Byrne was selected as the Labour candidate for the resulting by-election in 2004, but faced a major struggle to win what should have been a safe Labour seat.
The party's majority fell to 460, with the Liberal Democrats in second place, from 11,618 in 2001.
The drop in support was probably a result of opposition to the Iraq war, and Mr Byrne's political career may have been saved by the intervention of Respect, which ran a high-profile campaign in the by-election and picked up 1,282 votes.
Mr Byrne became a Health Minister following the General Election in May 2005, less than a year after becoming an MP.
In 2006 he became a Minister of State - a more senior role - in the Home Office, responsible for policing.
But within a week he was moved to become Immigration Minister, as John Reid, then the Home Secretary, decided he was the right person to restore public confidence in the immigration system following a series of scandals.
When Gordon Brown took over as Prime Minister, one of his first acts was to appoint regional ministers to represent the regions of England.
Mr Byrne was the obvious choice for the West Midlands, and is now officially listed on House of Commons documents as Minister for the West Midlands, while remaining responsible for immigration.
His new duties include advising the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Affairs, the new name for Trade and Industry, who should chair and sit on the board of Advantage West Midlands, the quango responsible for economic development, skills and tourism which spends £400 million a year.
He will also co-ordinate local services and Whitehall departments in times of crisis such as flooding or major job losses, and is to be accountable to MPs in regular Commons question and answer sessions.
His duties also include representing the West Midlands to government departments in Whitehall when policy is being drawn up or implemented, and at high-profile events.
Politically, Mr Byrne is a Blairite who has argued in favour of continued public service reform, while avoiding being drawn into the Blair-Brown wars of recent years.
