Rishi Sunak

Rishi Sunak born 12 May 1980 in Southampton to parents of Indian descent who migrated to Britain from East Africa in the 1960s. He was educated at Winchester College, studied philosophy, politics and economics at Lincoln College, Oxford, and earned an MBA from Stanford University in California as a Fulbright Scholar. During his time at Oxford University, Sunak undertook an internship at Conservative Campaign Headquarters and joined the Conservative Party. After graduating, Sunak worked for Goldman Sachs and later as a partner at the hedge fund firms The Children's Investment Fund Management and Theleme Partners.

He attended Stroud School, a preparatory school in Romsey, and later studied at Winchester College as a dayboy, becoming head boy of the college. He worked as a waiter in a curry house in Southampton during his summer holidays. He read philosophy, politics and economics at Lincoln College, Oxford, graduating with a first in 2001. During his time at university, he undertook an internship at Conservative Campaign Headquarters and joined the Conservative Party. In 2006, Sunak earned a Master of Business Administration postgraduate degree from Stanford University as a Fulbright Scholar. While at Stanford, he met his future wife Akshata Murty, the daughter of Indian billionaire N. R. Narayana Murthy of Infosys.

Sunak's paternal grandfather was from Gujranwala (present-day Pakistan , while his maternal grandfather was from Ludhiana (present-day India ; both cities at the time were in Punjab province, British India. His grandparents migrated to East Africa, and then to the United Kingdom in the 1960s.

His father, Yashvir Sunak, was born and raised in the Colony and Protectorate of Kenya (present-day Kenya), and is a general practitioner in the National Health Service. His mother, Usha Sunak, born in Tanganyika (which later became part of Tanzania), was a pharmacist and owned the Sunak Pharmacy in Southampton between 1995 and 2014, and has a degree from Aston University.

Sunak is the eldest of three siblings. His brother, Sanjay (born 1982), is a psychologist and his sister, Raakhi Williams (born 1985), works in New York as chief of strategy and planning at the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies.                    

In August 2009, he married Akshata Murty, the daughter of N. R. Narayana Murthy, the founder of the technology company Infosys in which Murty owns a stake. Sunak and Murty met while studying at Stanford University in the U.S.; they have two daughters, Krishna (born 2011) and Anoushka (born 2013). They own several houses, including the Kirby Sigston Manor in the village of Kirby Sigston, North Yorkshire, a mews house in Earl's Court in central London, a flat on the Old Brompton Road, South Kensington, and a penthouse apartment on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica, California.

Sunak is a teetotaler. He has stated he is a Coca-Cola addict and now has seven dental fillings due to excessive consumption when he was younger. He was previously a governor of the East London Science School. Sunak has a Labrador called Nova and is a cricket and horse racing enthusiast.

Sunak is a Hindu.He took his oath as an MP at the House of Commons on the Bhagavad Gita. In the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, Sunak spoke out against the racism he faced in his life and how his family struggled while immigrating to Britain in the 1960s.

Sunak is a close friend of The Spectator's former political editor James Forsyth, whom he has known since their school days. Sunak was the best man at Forsyth's wedding to the journalist Allegra Stratton, and they are godparents to each other's children. He appointed Forsyth as his political secretary in December 2022. In April 2022, it was reported that Sunak and Murty had moved out of 11 Downing Street to a newly refurbished West London home.