Rishi Sunak is a British politician, and also the son-in-law of NR Narayana Murthy (Indian billionaire businessman and co-founder of Infosys). He is the Member of Parliament for Richmond (York) since the 2015 UK general election and won his election on 13 February 2020. Took office as Finance Minister. Indian-origin British politician Rishi Sunak has been elected to the post of Prime Minister. Rishi has been serving as the Chancellor of the Exchequer since February 2020.
Rishi Sunak’s Birth & Early Life
Rishi Sunak was born on 12 May 1980 in Southampton to Indian Punjabi Hindu parents Yashveer Sunak and Usha Sunak. He is the eldest of three siblings. His father Yashveer was born in Kenya and his mother Usha was born in Tanzania. His grandparents were born in Punjab province, British India, and moved with their children to Britain from East Africa in the 1960s. His father Yashveer was a general practitioner (GP), and his mother Usha was a pharmacist who ran a local pharmacy. Sunak’s brother Sanjay is a psychologist. His sister Rakhi works in the Office of Foreign Affairs, Commonwealth and Development as Head of Humanitarian, Peacebuilding, United Nations Funds and Programs.
Rishi Sunak’s Education
Rishi Sunak attended Winchester College, a boys’ public boarding school, where he was the head boy and editor of the school paper. He studied philosophy, politics and economics at Lincoln College, Oxford. During his time at the university, he interned at the Conservative campaign headquarters. In 2006, he received his MBA degree from Stanford University.
Rishi Sunak’s marriage, wife
During his MBA course at Stanford University, he met his wife Akshata Murthy, whom he married in August 2009 in Bangalore city. The couple has two daughters. His wife is the daughter of Indian billionaire NR Narayana Murthy, and serves as a director at Catamaran Ventures. She also runs her own fashion label and is one of the richest women in Britain. Sunak and his wife live in the village of Kirby Sigston, near Northallerton, North Yorkshire. He also owns a house in Kensington, Central London, and a flat in Santa Monica, California.
Business Career of Rishi Sunak
Rishi Sunak started his first job as an analyst in 2001 for Goldman Sachs, an American investment bank in California. After this, in 2004, he worked for the hedge fund management firm The Children’s Investment Fund Management (TCI). In 2009, he quit his job and started an investment partnership firm, Thalem Partners, with an initial investment of $536 million in October 2010, less than a year later. In 2013, he and his wife were appointed as the directors of the investment firm “Catamaran Ventures UK Limited” by his father-in-law and Indian businessman NR Narayana Murthy. He later resigned from the firm on 30 April 2015 but his wife still works as the director of the organisation.
Political Career of Rishi Sunak
Rishi stepped into the UK Parliament for the first time in October 2014, when Rishi was chosen as the Conservative MP candidate for Richmond following the announcement by former MP William Hague not to contest the next general election. The following year, i.e. in 2015, Sunak contested the UK general election from Richmond and won a majority of 36.5% of the vote. As a member of parliament, Sunak served as a member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committees from 2015 to 2017. In the 2017 general elections, Rishi Sunak was re-elected as the MP of Richmond (York) with a large majority of 19,550 votes (36.2%). He served as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State from 9 January 2018 to 24 July 2019. Took the position. In view of his actions, he was appointed as the Chief Secretary of the Treasury by Prime Minister Boris Johnson on 24 July 2019. In the 2019 general elections, he was re-elected as an MP when he secured his third consecutive victory with a huge margin of 27,210 votes (47.2%). Rishi’s thriving political career saw another promotion when the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sajid Javid, dramatically resigned his post and was elected as the UK’s finance minister on 13 February 2020.
Career as UK Finance Minister
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Sunak presented his first budget on 11 March 2020. As the pandemic created a financial impact, Sunak announced additional spending of £30 billion, of which £12 billion was allocated to mitigate the economic impact of COVID. On 17 March 2020, they announced £330 billion in emergency aid for businesses and a wage subsidy scheme for employees. Three days later, he announced the job retention scheme, but received severe backlash as an estimated 100,000 people were not eligible. The scheme was extended till 30 September 2021. In the March 2021 budget, Sunak announced that the deficit had risen to £355 billion in fiscal year 2020-2021, the highest in peacetime. He increased the corporation tax from 19 to 25% in 2023, withholding a five-year tax-free personal allowance. At the G7 summit in June 2021, a tax reform agreement was signed to establish a global minimum tax on multinationals and online companies. In October 2021, he presented his third budget which included £5 billion for health research and innovation and £3 billion for skills education.
Rishi Sunak’s Net Worth
Net Worth (2021) – £3.1 billion
Net Worth In Indian Rupees – 300 crores