Until she was declared winner of the by-election in the early hours of the morning, Ms Champion was chief executive of BluebellWood Children's Hospice in Rotherham, which opened in 2008.
It was a gamble because even though she has a high local profile, as the chief executive of Rotherham's BluebellWood children's hospice, she has never had to cope with the rough-and-tumble of an election campaign.