Who is Hannah Mary Goodlad, John Swinney’s new public finance minister?

It was the surprise win of the day for the SNP when Ms Goodlad won Shetland, a safe Lib Dem seat since the 1950s.

Ever since devolution, the Lib Dems have comfortably held the northern isles at both Holyrood and Westminster. Yet this all changed on May 7 when Ms Goodlad took this seat off of them with a 1,517 majority.

Less than a week after she was formally sworn-in as the MSP for Shetland, she was appointed to one of the most important junior ministerial roles in government.

As public finance minister, she will report directly to both Finance Secretary Jenny Gilruth and Public Service Reform Secretary Ivan McKee.

So who exactly is Ms Goodlad, the woman with no political background who has managed to reach government in just six days?

She grew up in Shetland, and has previously said she enjoyed island life by playing in rockpools and collecting stones after school as a child.

The new MSP said she worked in “all kinds of jobs across our islands” including on salmon farms, the “Bressa gut factory”, Tesco and the islands’ museum, and was moderator of the Church of Scotland’s national youth assembly.

After school she went to Glasgow University to study chemistry, but changed her degree to geology after a field trip to Arran. She ended up graduating top of her class.

She then went to study petroleum geology at Imperial College London and was awarded a scholarship.

Since leaving education, she has worked for Norwegian state oil company Equinor, including in its Oslo, Aberdeen and London offices.

Equinor is operator of the controversial Rosebank oil field off the coast of Shetland, which is still awaiting full approval to develop the site.

During the course of her nine-year career at Equinor, she has held many roles including ones focusing on the Asia Pacific and the Baltic Sea.

She and her husband also have their own business – Scotland’s first outdoor sauna company, Haar Sauna.

Since being elected earlier this month, she has been very visible within the Scottish Parliament and is clearly well liked and respected within the SNP. On appointing her, Mr Swinney said the promotion was due to her “extensive experience in the private sector”.

While she is now in government, we can expect her to continue championing the northern isles as well, however.

When she was sworn in as an MSP, she said she had “brought Shetland to the heart of parliament”. She also wore a loaned two-piece hand-knitted Shetland dress.

A number of other MSPs who were only elected for the first time to Holyrood were also appointed to Mr Swinney’s government. This included a number of ex-MPs such as Stephen Gethins, Stephen Flynn, Kirsten Oswald and Alison Thewliss, and Edinburgh councillor Simita Kumar.

All the new cabinet secretaries and junior ministers were officially approved by parliament on Thursday afternoon.