FIRST FEMALE MUSLIM IN CABINET
Sayeeda Warsi's appointment to his then shadow cabinet was seen as a public statement of intent by David Cameron to change the face of his party.
And in Government the Prime Minister has stuck by her through thick and thin.
A successful lawyer, she was born in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, in 1971, and was the first Asian woman to be selected by the Tories to fight a parliamentary seat.
She came within 4,615 votes of unseating Labour's Shahid Mailk as MP for her home town in 2005.
In 2007 she entered the House of Lords instead as a Tory life peer, having worked as an adviser to both Mr Cameron and his predecessor, Michael Howard.
Educated at Birkdale High School and Dewsbury College, she studied law at Leeds University - going on to work for the Crown Prosecution Service, the Home Office and her own practice in Yorkshire.
Racial justice has always been high on her agenda. She was instrumental in the launch of Operation Black Vote in Yorkshire and served on the local Racial Justice Committee.
She also worked in Pakistan - where her family originated - on a forced marriage project with the Foreign Office.
The married mother-of-five was once dubbed "the most influential Asian woman in British politics" by BBC radio and was praised in 2006 for the way she handled an Islamic extremist who insisted she should wear a veil on Newsnight.
She entered Government after the 2010 general election, becoming Britain's first female Muslim Cabinet minister and hailing her appointment to the top table as a ''humbling'' moment.
And she ditched the pinstriped traditions of her predecessors as Tory Party chairman as she posed outside Downing Street in traditional Islamic garments after the coalition Cabinet's first meeting.
Gamely removing her coat at the request of photographers and hanging it on a railing outside 10 Downing Street, she braved the chill morning air to reveal a pink and purple shalwar kameez.
She then told reporters: ''To be born as the daughter of an immigrant mill worker in a mill town in Yorkshire, to have the privilege of serving in Cabinet at such an important time in Britain's history, I think it is terribly humbling.''
But her time in Government has not been entirely without incident.
In 2012, Mr Cameron ordered an inquiry into whether she breached the ministerial code when she was accompanied by a business partner on an official visit to Pakistan.
Lady Warsi wrote a letter of apology to Mr Cameron, saying she was ''sincerely sorry'' for the embarrassment to the Government.
But the inquiry concluded that she was guilty of only a "minor" breach of the ministerial code.
She was also cleared of abusing expenses by claiming for overnight stays at a property she was using for free although she was found to have breached rules by failing to declare that she was renting out her own London home.
A few weeks later Baroness Warsi was moved in Mr Cameron's first reshuffle, losing her job as Tory Party co-chairman, which she shared with Michael Fallon.
Rising star Grant Shapps was appointed party chairman in her place but Baroness Warsi stayed in the Government as Minister for Foreign Affairs and Faith Groups after apparently insisting Mr Cameron give her a more substantial role.
