Rishi Sunak, the son-in-law of founder of the Bengaluru-based IT bellwether N.R. Narayana Murthy, was in the spotlight when he became the treasury chief of the UK in 2020. In this post, he was responsible for steering away the British economy through its worst economic crisis due to the pandemic.
Sunak also formulated policies to help businesses and workers tide over the impact of the pandemic, the news agency Associated Press reported. He also announced a programme aimed at job retention worth 410 billion pounds.
Despite his policies aimed at helping Britons tide through the pandemic, he could not avoid controversies. The British Police imposed a fine on him and Johnson for attending a birthday party at Downing Street in the middle of the lockdown. He was also widely criticised for the tax-and-spend budget in 2021 and not giving enough cost-of-living support to households. Besides, he also faced scrutiny after reports surfaced that Akshata Murthy, his wife and Narayana Murthy’s daughter, avoided payment of taxes on her overseas income and that Sunak did not surrender his US green card while serving in the British government. Rishi Sunak, whose resignation as Chancellor of the exchequer triggered an avalanche of resignations against Boris Johnson, is believed to be a contender for next UK Prime Minister. If it happens, he will be first Indian origin man to be British PM. Rishi Sunak’s grandparents came from Punjab. He has two daughters with Akshata Murty, the daughter of Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy. They met while students in California. The 42-year-old was born and grew up in the English coastal town of Southampton. During the UK-India Awards in Windsor, Sunak spoke about the many sacrifices made by his National Health Service (NHS) general practitioner (GP) father, Yashvir and pharmacist mother, Usha. Sunak was born to Indian parents who moved to Britain from East Africa. He attended the Winchester College private school and further studied in Oxford. Sunak has served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2020 to 2022, having previously served as Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 2019 to 2020. The Sunaks’ Georgian mansion, where locals described attending parties with liveried staff pouring champagne from magnums, is not the only property they own. There is also the £7m, five-bedroom house in Kensington, west London; a flat, also in Kensington, that the couple reportedly keep “just for visiting relatives”; and an apartment in Santa Monica, California.
The chancellor’s extensive property portfolio is just one source of his wealth. After studying at Oxford University, Sunak went on to work for US investment bank Goldman Sachs for four years. He left to pursue a business degree at Stanford University in California, where he said meeting influential figures in the multi-billion US tech industry “left a mark” on him.
From there, Sunak had a stint working at hedge funds back in London. He was a partner at the Children’s Investment Fund (TCI) where he is believed to have made millions of pounds from a campaign that helped trigger the 2008 financial crisis.
Surjitt Sahani
