And like any good aspiring leader, the clean-cut, surfing Christian has talked down his ambitions for just as long.

"My hope is that Barry [O'Farrell] sees that I want nothing more than to support him to turn around this state," he told the (sydney) magazine in 2012.

Born in 1968 to Judy and Bruce, politics was entrenched in his upbringing. His father served first as a minister in the NSW Greiner government and later as a federal MP during the Howard years.

Part of his childhood was spent living overseas, including in the US where Bruce Baird served as trade commissioner. As an adolescent, Mike Baird returned to Sydney and was sent to The King's School at Parramatta.

While he was a member of the Young Liberals, became president of his local chapter, and had an unsuccessful tilt at the seat of Manly in 1999 at the tender age of 30, public life proper lured him later in life - by way of Bible college.

Mike Baird studied arts and economics at the University of Sydney and began a career in the banking sector.

He married his wife of almost a quarter of century, Kerryn, at a young age and they have three children, Laura, Cate and Luke.

By the time he relinquished the big bucks to take a politician's wage, he was head of institutional banking in Australia and New Zealand for HSBC.

His decision to run, he has said, germinated during the year he spent studying to become an Anglican minister at the University of Columbia in Canada in 1995.

His faith weighs heavily on his socially conservative views.

Mike Baird has campaigned against dangerous drinking, voted against embryonic stem cell research and does not support gay marriage.

He is friends with Prime Minister Tony Abbott, with whom he used to surf.

"There is an incredible resilience to him … but he's also down-to-earth, genuine, compassionate and a fighter who happens to be a Rhodes scholar - that's quite an incredible mix," Mr Baird said of Mr Abbott almost two years ago.

Despite Mike Baird's squeaky-clean image, concerns have been raised over his relationship with Nick Di Girolamo, the Liberal identity whose gift of a $3000 bottle of wine to Barry O'Farrell led to his resignation as Premier.

Mike Baird was a shareholding minister when Mr Di Girolamo was appointed a director of the State Water Corporation in June 2012, which he has insisted was a decision of the cabinet.

He also came under fire over the $200,000 a year appointment to a government board of businessman Roger Massy-Greene, whose company had also donated to Mike Baird's election campaigns.

But Mr Baird, who turned 46 last week, looks likely to rise above the murky waters of NSW politics to become the state's 44th premier.