Rishi Sunak Quick Info | |
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Height | 5 ft 8 in |
Weight | 71 kg |
Date of Birth | May 12, 1980 |
Zodiac Sign | Taurus |
Spouse | Akshata Murthy |
Rishi Sunak is a British politician who was appointed the chancellor of the exchequer (the chief executive of the treasury within the Government of the United Kingdom; third in the ministerial ranking) in February 2020. Before this, he had served as chief secretary to the Treasury (the second most senior Treasury minister in the United Kingdom) from July 2019 2019 to February 2020. Between January 2018 and July 2019, he served as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Local Government. Since May 2015, he has been a Member of Parliament (as of May 2022) from Richmond (Yorks), a constituency in North Yorkshire. In October 2022, he was chosen as the Prime Minister of England.
Born Name
Rishi Sunak
Nick Name
Dishy Rishi, Mr. Tax
Sun Sign
Taurus
Born Place
Southampton General Hospital, Southampton, Hampshire, England, United Kingdom
Residence
London, England, United Kingdom
Nationality
Education
Rishi had attended the Stroud School in Romsey, Hampshire. He had later studied at Winchester College, a boys’ independent boarding school in Winchester, Hampshire.
After his high school graduation, he joined Lincoln College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford, a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. He studied philosophy, politics, and economics there and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree with first-class honors in 2001.
In 2004, he joined the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the graduate business school of Stanford University, a private research university in Stanford, California, where he was a ‘Fulbright’ scholar (the Fulbright Program is an American cultural exchange program). He graduated from there with an MBA degree in 2006.
Occupation
Politician
Family
- Father – Yashvir Sunak (General Practitioner)
- Mother – Usha Sunak (Pharmacist)
- Siblings – Sanjay Sunak (Younger Brother) (Psychologist), Raakhi Sunak (Younger Sister) (Head of Humanitarian, Peacebuilding, UN Funds & Programmes at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, a Department of the Government of the United Kingdom)
- Others – N. R. Narayana Murthy (Father-in-Law) (Founder of Infosys, Former Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, President, and Chief Mentor of Infosys, Padma Vibhushan Awardee), Sudha Murthy (née Kulkarni) (Mother-in-Law) (Businesswoman, Educator, Author, Philanthropist, Chairperson of the Infosys Foundation, Padma Shri Awardee), Rohan Murty (Brother-in-Law) (Founder of the Murty Classical Library of India, Former Executive Assistant at the Chairman’s Office at Infosys), Shrinivas Kulkarni (Uncle-in-Law) (Astrophysicist), R.H. Kulkarni (Grandfather-in-Law) (Surgeon), Vimala Kulkarni (Grandmother-in-Law), Padavathamma Murthy (Grandmother-in-Law), N. Rama Rao (Grandfather-in-Law)
Net Worth
In May 2022, Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murthy’s combined net worth was $911 million according to The Sunday Times’ ‘UK Rich List’.
Build
Slim
Height
5 ft 8 in or 173 cm
Weight
71 kg or 156.5 lbs
Girlfriend / Spouse
Rishi has dated –
- Akshata Murthy (2009-Present) – Rishi got engaged to Indian fashion designer, entrepreneur, and businessperson Akshata Murthy at Half Moon Bay. Later, in August 2009, the couple got married in a ceremony held in Bangalore, India. They had first met while they were both students at Stanford University. They have 2 daughters together named Krishna Sunak and Anoushka Sunak. Akshata has owned, since 2015, a 0.93% stake in the Indian multinational IT company Infosys which was founded by her father N. R. Narayana Murthy in July 1981. Her wealth and her status as a non-domiciled UK resident (which temporarily entitles her to pay no tax on her income outside Britain, subject to an annual payment of £30,000) with Indian citizenship became the topic of much debate and speculation in the British media in 2022. This was because Rishi was serving as the chancellor of the exchequer of the United Kingdom at that time and the country was going through a ‘cost of living’ crisis. Another factor in this discussion was the fact that she was wealthier than Queen Elizabeth II and was not paying tax in the UK on her unremitted income from Infosys dividends.
Race / Ethnicity
Asian (Indian)
Hair Color
Salt-and-Pepper
Eye Color
Light Brown
Sexual Orientation
Straight
Distinctive Features
- Slender frame
- Side-parted hair
- Clean-shaven look
Religion
Hinduism
Rishi Sunak Facts
- His father was born and raised in British Kenya (present-day Kenya) and his mother was born in the British colonial territory of Tanganyika (which later became part of Tanzania).
- His grandparents were born in Punjab Province, British India. They had moved to East Africa and later emigrated, with their children, to the United Kingdom in the 1960s.
- At Winchester College, Rishi was the head boy and the editor of the school paper. During his summer holidays at that time, he used to wait tables at a curry house in Southampton.
- During his time at Lincoln College, he undertook an internship at the Conservative Campaign Headquarters, the headquarters of the British Conservative Party, in London.
- After graduating from Lincoln College in 2001, he worked as an analyst for Goldman Sachs, an American multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in New York City, until 2004.
- After graduating from Stanford University in 2006, he worked for The Children’s Investment Fund Management, a London‐based hedge fund management firm. He became a partner there in September 2006.
- Rishi left that firm in November 2009 to join some former colleagues at a new hedge fund firm called Theleme Partners which was launched in October 2010.
- In 2013, he co-founded the Indian venture capital fund Catamaran Ventures with his wife Akshata Murthy. He had served as a director at the firm.
- A devout Hindu, he has taken his oath at the House of Commons (the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom) on the Bhagavad Gita (one of the holiest scriptures in Hinduism that is dated to the second half of the first millennium BCE) since 2017.
- In April 2022, he became the first Chancellor in British history to have been sanctioned for breaking the law while in office. He was issued a fixed penalty notice for breaching COVID-19 regulations.
- He is a close friend of the British political journalist James Forsyth. They were schoolmates at Winchester College. Rishi was the best man at his wedding to the British former political aide, journalist, and writer Allegra Stratton. James and Rishi are godparents to each other’s children.
- He owns a pet Labrador dog named Nova.
- He is a teetotaller.
- On September 5, 2022, Rishi Sunak got defeated by Liz Truss who was announced as the new Prime Minister of the UK. However, in October 2022, after Liz Truss resigned from the position of Prime Minister (PM) after 44 days, Rishi Sunak won the race to become UK’s next PM.
- Rishi Sunak is the first British PM of Indian origin.
- In 2022, Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murthy became the richest-ever occupants of 10 Downing Street which is the official residence of the British PM. Their combined net worth, at that time, was allegedly $837 million which majorly came from Akshata’s stake in Infosys. This also happened for the first time when occupants of 10 Downing Street were richer than the British monarch.
- In October 2022, it was revealed that Rishi Sunak and his family would be residing in a smaller 2-bedroom flat above 10 Downing Street that he stayed in when he was UK’s Chancellor. Former UK PMs Boris Johnson and Liz Truss had stayed in 4-bedroom flats.
- In January 2023, Rishi was fined for not wearing a seat belt while traveling in the backseat of his car. He was reportedly filming a social media clip at that time to promote his government’s ‘Levelling Up Fund’ announcements.
- In March 2023, Rishi and his family members were involved in an incident, in which, they were approached by a police officer in central London’s Hyde Park after they had allowed their dog Nova to roam freely without a leash. This happened because the signs in the park clearly stated that “all dogs must be kept on leads”.
- In March 2023, Rishi Sunak had hosted the members of the T20 World Cup-winning England cricket team at his official residence, 10 Downing Street.
- As a child, he used to work with his mother at Sunak Pharmacy, a medical shop in Southampton.
- In September 2023, Rishi along with his wife Akshata visited Akshardham Temple in Delhi, India. At that time, he was on an official visit for the G20 Summit in India.
- In December 2023, UK PM Rishi was temporarily locked out of his own home, i.e. 10 Downing Street while hosting Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
Featured Image by Rishi Sunak / Instagram