Akshata Murty’s father NRNarayana Murthy co-founded tech giant Infosys in 1981. (File)
New Delhi:
Akshata Murty, the Indian wife of controversial British Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, is richer than the Queen as the daughter of a self-made tech billionaire and an equally formidable engineer and philanthropist mother.
Once thought of as a future UK Prime Minister, Mr Sunak has seen his popularity plummet amid rising consumer prices, while recent reports of Ms Murty’s foreign earnings being foreclosed from UK tax authorities have added to the pressure.
Her father, NR Narayana Murthy, 75, co-founded tech giant Infosys in 1981, the outsourcing giant that has fueled India’s remarkable transformation into the “back office of the world”.
The company borrowed Rs 10,000 ($130) from his wife Sudha Murthy to help create it, the company is now worth about $100 billion and was the first Indian company to list on Wall Street.
Sudha Murthy, 71, meanwhile became Tata Motors’ first female engineer after complaining via postcard to the chairman about the company’s stipulation that “female candidates are not required to apply”.
Rishi Sunak and Akshata Murthy met at Stanford University in the US while the latter was completing her MBA. The future Chancellor of the Exchequer was a Fulbright scholar who already had a first-class Oxford degree.
Their 2009 wedding was a relatively modest affair, but the reception was attended by about 1,000 guests, including politicians, industrialists and cricketers.
“Slander campaign
Akshata Murty, 42, owns nearly $1 billion worth of shares in Infosys, according to the company’s stock exchange announcement.
This makes her richer than Queen Elizabeth II, whose personal wealth is about 350 million pounds ($460 million), according to the Sunday Times Rich List 2021.
The couple own at least four properties, including a £7 million five-bedroom house in luxury Kensington, London, and a condo in Santa Monica, California.
Akshata Murty is also the director of the venture capital firm Catamaran Ventures which she co-founded with Sunak in 2013.
She confirmed this week that she is “treated as non-domiciled for tax purposes in the UK”, meaning the proceeds of her Infosys stake are only taxed outside of the UK.
Sunak told the Sun newspaper for Friday’s edition that “smearing my wife to get me is abominable”.
He said that “it would not be reasonable or fair to ask her to cut ties with her country because she happened to be married to me”.
Akshata Murty founded her own fashion label Akshata Designs in 2010.
According to a 2011 Vogue profile, she collaborates with artists in remote villages to create clothes that form “Indian-meets-Western” fusion clothes that are “vehicles to discover Indian culture.”
“I believe we live in a materialistic society,” she told the magazine. “People are becoming more aware of the world they live in. Doing good is fashionable.”
