Johnson was appointed minister for investment at the Department for Business and Trade (previously Department for International Trade) on 24 November 2022.  He was previously minister of state jointly in the Department for International Trade and the Cabinet Office between 2 October 2022 and 28 October 2022. He has spent more than 25 years in financial services, beginning his career at Robert Fleming in 1995, before moving to Hong Kong to work for Jardine Fleming and then, in 2002, after a series of dot com start-ups, heading the marketing for Lloyd George Asset Management – an emerging markets specialist firm. In 2007, he co-founded Somerset Capital Management as an employee-owned democratic partnership, focusing on pension fund management in developing countries. Between 9 November 2022 and 2 October 2022, Johnson was a non-executive board member of the Department for International Trade. He was chair of the department’s audit and risk assurance committee. Between 2017 and 2019 he was vice-chairman of the Conservative Party.