London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 11, 2025

Rishi who? Sunak says Stanford business school changed his life, but few remember him

Rishi who? Sunak says Stanford business school changed his life, but few remember him

Teachers at Tory leadership contender’s alma mater say they have no recollection of the man who would be prime minister
Rishi Sunak has said going to California’s Stanford business school changed his life. Stanford “teaches you to think bigger”, he told a venture capital podcast last year. In place of a “more incremental mindset”, studying at the heart of Silicon Valley encouraged him to embrace “a slightly bigger, more dynamic approach to change”, said the former UK chancellor.

While Stanford clearly made its mark on him, it’s less clear whether Sunak made much of a mark at Stanford, one of the highest-ranked business schools in the world. After receiving a Fulbright scholarship to study in the US, he graduated from its two-year MBA programme in 2006.

Stanford is a busy place, and a dozen professors and lecturers from that time told the Guardian they had no memory of teaching the man vying to become the UK’s next prime minister.

These included teachers on some of the school’s signature courses: Irv Grousbeck, an expert on entrepreneurship; Andy Rachleff, who holds classes on innovation; Charles O’Reilly, who runs courses on leadership; and Carole Robin, one of the teachers of interpersonal dynamics, a popular elective students refer to as “touchy-feely”.

When he delivered a prestigious business school lecture in London last year, Sunak, now 42 and also a University of Oxford alumnus, cited one of his “inspiring” Stanford professors, the Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Romer, and described the impact of Romer’s lecture on innovation. “I have no recollection of ever interacting with him,” Romer told the Guardian.

Jeffrey Pfeffer, who teaches a renowned course called The Paths to Power, posted on LinkedIn that Sunak had been among his students and that he hoped they learn lessons about power to “rise to positions where they can have the leverage to make a difference in the world”.

Asked for any recollections of Sunak, Pfeffer said he did “not have the bandwidth to respond to this query” as he was about to travel.

Another professor, James Van Horne, initially said he had not taught Sunak but later found a record of him enrolled in one of his corporate finance classes. “He was a good student and participated well, but beyond that I do not have a lot of recollection,” Van Horne wrote.

Robert Joss, the dean of the business school at the time, said he barely remembered Sunak but vaguely recalled a “very bright and a very good student”. “My impression of all of our students was that they’re great,” said Joss, who retired in 2009.

With roughly 400 students in each business school graduating class, Joss said, it was not possible to get to know everyone deeply and, as administrators, “you remember the students that get in trouble or the students that won the big prizes”.

Sunak was not listed among the students in his 2006 MBA class awarded prizes at graduation for being among the top 10% academically, for service to the university, or for contributing to the school’s social culture and sense of fun. Dozens of his classmates did not respond to a request to share memories, or declined to comment.

Joss said he did have a stronger memory of another MBA student in Sunak’s year: Akshata Murty, his future wife, whom he recalled as “very bright, very smart”. The dean knew her parents because NR Narayana Murthy, her father and the billionaire founder of Infosys, was a member of Stanford business school’s advisory council.

It is common for Stanford classmates to meet and marry, a trend that he sees clearly in the alumni magazine, Joss said.

Four years after Murty and Sunak wed in Bengaluru in 2009, they made a “generous” donation to Stanford’s business school to fund a fellowship in social innovation. A university spokesperson declined to comment on the amount donated.

The couple also gave $3m to Claremont McKenna, a small private liberal arts college outside Los Angeles, where Murty majored in economics and French. She has been a member of Claremont McKenna’s board of trustees since 2011.

Their 2018 donation funded the college’s Murty Sunak Quantitative and Computing Lab. The couple said the gift was inspired in part by a favourite motto of Murty’s father: “In God we trust. And everyone else must bring data to the table.”
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
The British legal mafia hit back: Banksy mural of judge beating protester is scrubbed from London court
Surpassing Musk: Larry Ellison becomes the richest man in the world
Embarrassment for Starmer: He fired the ambassador photographed on Epstein’s 'pedophile island'
Manhunt after 'skilled sniper' shot Charlie Kirk. Footage: Suspect running on rooftop during panic
Effective Protest Results: Nepal’s Prime Minister Resigns as Youth-Led Unrest Shakes the Nation
Qatari prime minister says Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages
King Charles and Prince Harry Share First In-Person Moment in 19 Months
Starmer Establishes Economic ‘Budget Board’ to Centralise Policy and Rebuild Business Trust
France Erupts in Mass ‘Block Everything’ Protests on New PM’s First Day
Poland Shoots Down Russian Drones in Airspace Violation During Ukraine Attack
Brazilian police say ex-President Bolsonaro had planned to flee to Argentina seeking asylum
Trinidad Leader Applauds U.S. Naval Strike and Advocates Forceful Action Against Traffickers
Kim Jong Un Oversees Final Test of New High-Thrust Solid-Fuel Rocket Engine
Apple Introduces Ultra-Thin iPhone Air, Enhanced 17 Series and New Health-Focused Wearables
Macron Appoints Sébastien Lecornu as Prime Minister Amid Budget Crisis and Political Turmoil
Supreme Court temporarily allows Trump to pause billions in foreign aid
Charlie Sheen says his father, Martin Sheen, turned him in to the police: 'The greatest betrayal possible'
Vatican hosts first Catholic LGBTQ pilgrimage
Apple Unveils iPhone 17 Series, iPhone Air, Apple Watch 11 and More at 'Awe Dropping' Event
Pig Heads Left Outside Multiple Paris Mosques in Outrage-Inducing Acts
Nvidia’s ‘Wow’ Factor Is Fading. The AI chip giant used to beat Wall Street expectations for earnings by a substantial margin. That trajectory is coming down to earth.
France joins Eurozone’s ‘periphery’ as turmoil deepens, say investors
On the Anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s Death: Prince Harry Returns to Britain
France Faces New Political Crisis, again, as Prime Minister Bayrou Pushed Out
Murdoch Family Finalises $3.3 Billion Succession Pact, Ensuring Eldest Son’s Leadership
Big Oil Slashes Jobs and Investments Amid Prolonged Low Crude Prices
Court Staff Cover Up Banksy Image of Judge Beating a Protester
Social Media Access Curtailed in Turkey After CHP Calls for Rallies Following Police Blockade of Istanbul Headquarters
Nayib Bukele Points Out Belgian Hypocrisy as Brussels Considers Sending Army into the Streets
Elon Musk Poised to Become First Trillionaire Under Ambitious Tesla Pay Plan
France, at an Impasse, Heads Toward Another Government Collapse
Burning the Minister’s House Helped Protesters to Win Justice: Prabowo Fires Finance Minister in Wake of Indonesia Protests
Brazil Braces for Fallout from Bolsonaro Trial by corrupted judge
The Country That Got Too Rich? Public Spending Dominates Norway Election
Nearly 40 Years Later: Nike Changes the Legendary Slogan Just Do It
Generations Born After 1939 Unlikely to Reach Age One Hundred, New Study Finds
End to a four-year manhunt in New Zealand: the father who abducted his children to the forests was killed, the three siblings were found
Germany Suspends Debt Rules, Funnels €500 Billion Toward Military and Proxy War Strategy
EU Prepares for War
BMW Eyes Growth in China with New All‑Electric Neue Klasse Lineup
Trump Threatens Retaliatory Tariffs After EU Imposes €2.95 Billion Fine on Google
Tesla Board Proposes Unprecedented One-Trillion-Dollar Performance Package for Elon Musk
US Justice Department Launches Criminal Mortgage-Fraud Probe into Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook
Escalating Drug Trafficking and Violence in Latin America: A Growing Crisis
US and Taiwanese Defence Officials Held Secret Talks in Alaska
Report: Secret SEAL Team 6 Mission in North Korea Ordered by Trump in 2019 Ended in Failure
Gold Could Reach Nearly $5,000 if Fed Independence Is Undermined, Goldman Sachs Warns
Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay Secure Places at 2026 World Cup
Florida Murder Case: The Adelson Family, the Killing of Dan Markel, and the Trial of Donna Adelson
Trump Administration Advances Plans to Rebrand Pentagon as Department of War Instead of the Fake Term Department of Defense
×