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Akshata Murty is a Britain-based Indian businesswoman and fashion designer. She is the wife of Rishi Sunak, the 57th Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. She is the daughter of N. R. Narayana Murthy, who is the co-founder of Infosys, a multinational IT company.
Wiki/Biography
Akshata Murty was born in April 1980 (age 42 years; as of 2022) in Hubli, Karnataka. She did her schooling at Baldwin Girls High School in Bangalore. She attended Claremont McKenna College, California to complete her graduation in Economics & French. She holds a diploma in Apparel Manufacturing Technology from the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles, California. Later, she completed her MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business, California.
Physical Appearance
Height (approx.): 5′ 4″
Hair Colour: Black
Eye Colour: Black
Family
She was born in a Hindu-Brahmin Family.
Parents & Siblings
Her father, N. R. Narayana Murthy, is a co-founder of Infosys, and her mother, Sudha Murthy , is one of the founders of ‘Infosys Foundation.’ She has a younger brother named Rohan Murty, who is the founder of the ‘Murty Classical Library of India.’
N. R. Narayana Murty with Rohan and Akshata
Akshata Murty with her parents and brother
Husband & Children
Akshata Murty is married to Rishi Sunak, the 57th Prime Minister of the UK. On 30 August 2009, they got married in a simple wedding held at Leela Palace Hotel in Bangalore. The wedding was attended by some of the renowned people of India like Azim Premji, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Anil Kumble, Nandan M Nilekani, Captain G.R. Gopinath, Prakash Padukone, Syed Kirmani, Girish Karnad, and more.
The couple has two daughters, Anoushka Sunak and Krishna Sunak.
Akshata Murty with Her Husband and Daughters
Relationships/Affairs
When Akshata Murty was pursuing her post-graduation, she met Rishi Sunak in California. Soon, they became good friends and started dating each other.
Nationality
Akshata Murty has Indian citizenship. While talking about not having any plans to change her citizenship, Akshata’s spokesperson said,
Akshata Murty is a citizen of India, the country of her birth and her parents’ home. India does not allow its citizens to hold the citizenship of another country simultaneously.”
Career
Before pursuing her MBA, she worked at Unilever and Deloitte for a short period of time. After completing her MBA, Akshata joined Tendris, a Dutch cleantech Incubator Fund as a marketing director in the year 2007. She launched her own clothing line in 2009. On starting her own business, she said,
I understand that there may be some curiosity around what I’m doing given my parents’ achievements, but I hope that one day this business is able to stand on its own feet and I’m able to speak on its merit rather than anything else. This is my passion and I couldn’t imagine being engaged in anything else but the business of this venture.”
In 2013, she became the director of Catamaran Ventures. She started working as a member of the Board of Claremont McKenna College and the San Francisco Exploratorium in 2017. She is the director of two companies named New & Lingwood, which is a menswear company, and Digme Fitness, a gym chain.
Controversy
In April 2022, Akshata Murty was questioned over her income tax status in Britain. According to some media reports, she claimed a non-domiciled tax status in the UK that exempted her to pay taxes on dividend benefits received from overseas companies. Following this, her husband, Rishi Sunak, faced allegations over his wife’s income from Russia, where Murthy’s company Infosys was operating even during the Russia-Ukraine War. Later, in a statement, Infosys announced the withdrawal of its services from Russia.
Assets & Properties
- A 12-acre Georgian Manor house in the Yorkshire village of Kirby Sigston worth around £1.5 million. Reportedly, this property is owned by Akshata Murty.
Akshata Murty’s mansion in the Yorkshire village of Kirby Sigston
- A penthouse apartment on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica, California worth £7.5 million. This property is registered under Akshata’s name.
Akshata Murty’s penthouse apartment on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica, California
- A mews mansion in Kensington, West London worth £6.6 million. This property is owned by Rishi Sunak.
Akshata Murty’s mews mansion in Kensington, West London
- A first-floor flat in Old Brompton Road, Kensington worth $300,000. Rishi Sunak owns this property.
Net Worth
As of 2022, her collective net worth along with her husband Rishi Sunak is roughly estimated to be $810 million. As of Sunday Times Rich List 2022, the couple was ranked 222 on the rich list.
Facts/Trivia
- She was brought up by her grandparents in Hubli while her parents were struggling in their professional lives.
- Akshata owns 0.93% shares of Infosys, which is around $700 million.
- She is one of the richest women in the UK. Reportedly, her net worth was more than the late Queen Elizabeth II, whose net worth was around $460 million.
- Before Rishi Sunak participated in the Prime Ministerial elections in 2022, Rishi and Akshata, reportedly, spent $450,000 to install a 40-foot swimming pool, a gym and an outdoor tennis court in their Yorkshire manor house in Kirby Sigston.
- She spells her surname differently from her father’s and removed ‘h’ from Murthy.
- Reportedly, Akshata has undeclared shares in some other firms in the UK including a joint venture with Amazon India.
- In an interview, while remembering a class on work-life balance at Stanford University, she shared how she was brought up in one of the richest families in India and said,
What was interesting was this whole discussion about how women have to juggle work-life balance, especially in the corporate world. I was sort of puzzled because I grew up in a family of very strong women… so I never thought it was just a woman’s job to have this work-life balance. It was the family’s job to have this balance.”
- She holds 50% of Sierra Nevada Restaurants, an Indian firm that runs 4 outlets of Wendy’s in New Delhi, and she owns 100% of Dolomite Restaurants, a private organisation, which holds 11 Indian franchises of British chef Jamie Oliver’s restaurant chains.
- In Sudha Menon’s “Legacy: Letters from eminent parents to their daughters,” there is a letter for Akshata, written by her father. A few lines of the letter are,
Becoming a father transformed me in ways that I could never have thought possible. I could never go back to being the person I used to be before. Your arrival in my life brought unimaginable joy and a larger responsibility. I was no more just a husband, a son, or a promising employee of a fast-growing company. I was a father, who had to measure up to the expectations his daughter would have of him at every stage of her life.”
- In an interview, her husband, Rishi Sunak, revealed that he is very organised while on the other hand, Akshata is messy and spontaneous, he said,
I’m incredibly tidy, she’s very messy. I’m much more organised, she is more spontaneous. She is not going to love me for saying this, but I’ll be honest with you, she is not big on the whole tidying thing. She is a total nightmare, clothes everywhere… and shoes… oh God shoes.”
- According to sources, Akshata works with craftsmen living in remote villages in India to create clothes with a fusion of Indian and Western cultures.