Rishi Sunak's rise to power has attracted attention in India - and not just because he is the first British Asian prime minister. His wife Akshata Murty is the daughter of Indian billionaire Narayana Murthy, one of the country's best known businessmen who has been dubbed the Bill Gates of India. Know all about her.
In becoming the 57th Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the first person of colour to hold the position, Rishi Sunak will make history. The Indian-origin former Finance Minister is also UK’s first Hindu premier.
The emphasis is not just on Sunak, but also on the family as they prepare to move into Downing Street No. 10 with him, his wife Akshata Murty, and their two children, Krishna and Anushka. Akshata Murty was born in India and is the daughter of Narayana Murthy, the founder of Infosys and an Indian billionaire.
Sunak, who was born in Southampton in 1980 to Indian parents who immigrated to the UK from east Africa, had attended Stanford University to obtain a business degree, where he met Akshata, according to The Guardian.
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Murty, 42, is the daughter of NR Narayana Murthy, the man who founded Infosys and is frequently referred to as the Bill Gates of India. According to sources, Akshata owns a 0.91% share in her father's business, which is worth roughly $700 million.
She graduated from a fashion institute and worked for Deloitte and Unilever before enrolling at Stanford University to get an MBA, where she met Sunak.
According to The Guardian, she is the director of a venture capital business that her father launched in 2010 and manages her own design line, Akshata Designs. She is listed as a director for the gym chain Digme Fitness, the men's clothing retailer New & Lingwood, and the capital and private equity firm Catamaran Ventures on LinkedIn.
Murty became richer than the late Queen Elizabeth II, whose personal fortune was estimated by the 2021 Sunday Times Rich List to be over 460 million dollars, thanks to her stake in Infosys, which was valued around 700 million dollars.
It was discovered in April of this year that Murty was a non-domiciled UK resident, which meant she was exempt from UK taxes on her foreign income in exchange for paying an annual fee of 30,000 pounds, according to The Guardian. She could have been able to save close to 20 million pounds in taxes as a result.
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