Akshata Murty, MBA ’06, and Rishi Sunak, MBA ’06 gave the keynote address to the graduating Class of 2025 at their graduation ceremony on Saturday, June 14, 2025.
Interim Dean Peter DeMarzo: Now I have the pleasure of introducing our speakers, Akshata Murty and Rishi Sunak.
As you’ll hear more about shortly, Akshata and Rishi — both members of the Class of 2006 — met right here at the GSB.
Throughout their lives and careers, they have been dedicated leaders in the private and public spheres.
Akshata has spent over a decade investing in early-stage, consumer-focused British companies and currently leads the Office of Akshata Murty & Rishi Sunak, which promotes initiatives to drive positive impact in the UK. She is a trustee of her alma mater, Claremont McKenna College, and sits on the board of the Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK.
Rishi has spent the last decade in the UK government, where he was Chancellor of the Exchequer before becoming the country’s 57th Prime Minister. He was the first British Asian prime minister and the youngest person to take on the role in 200 years. He is currently a Member of Parliament and serves as the William C. Edwards Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution.
Together, they have journeyed from Stanford to 10 Downing Street and beyond.
Please join me in welcoming Akshata Murty and Rishi Sunak.
Rishi Sunak: Thank you, Dean DeMarzo, for your kind words and for giving us the honour of joining you today.
We have all just rightly applauded the faculty and staff for their brilliant work, and your friends and family for their love and support, but last, and by no means least, Class of ’25…you made it…congratulations! It’s time to give yourselves a round of applause, too!
Akshata Murty: We remember our own ceremony so well — it was actually the first time our parents met, so it’s wonderful to return in slightly less stressful circumstances. Stanford was transformational for us. I came here from India via LA and Rishi from the UK, it opened our eyes to a whole new way of thinking which has informed everything we’ve done since.
It also changed the course of our lives because this is where we met, in the Schwab Courtyard to be precise. Who needs algorithms when, as our then Admissions Director Derrick Bolton has told us, he could see we were meant to be together before we’d even met, just from reading our essays.
So thank you Stanford. 20 years and two daughters later — forget about being the best business school in the world, you’re an even better matchmaking service. And now here we are, so honoured to be the first GSB couple to do a commencement speech together.
Rishi and I approach things quite differently so the process of preparing for today has been…let’s just say a little bit “revealing.” I’ve heard couples therapy can be very painful, but on reflection that might just have been the easier option! But it’s also been rewarding because it’s allowed us to reflect on who we are and how our experience here has played such an important part in our life together.
Rishi Sunak: Our different approaches have meant we could push each other’s thinking to become something better, sharper, deeper. We are each other’s force multipliers. And today we would like to share three lessons we’ve learned from our own two-person T-group, if you will, which we would have found helpful sitting where you are today.
The first lesson is what I have learned from Akshata about the false comfort of data alone. I’m a numbers guy, which was a helpful way of bonding with my father-in-law, Narayana Murthy, a pioneer of the Indian software industry who founded Infosys. He lives by the saying “in God we trust, everyone else must bring data to the table,” and I couldn’t agree more.
That deep respect for data has given me the edge in every role I’ve had since leaving here. Well done for surviving Data and Decisions, because that depth of understanding will be relevant for everything you do, the full extent of which will be impossible to comprehend right now. Little did I know sitting in that class that techniques I learned there would help me 15 years later with understanding SIR models, R numbers and exponential growth curves as our government responded to a once-in-a-century pandemic.
In 2021, after months of lockdowns, the new Omicron variant of Covid emerged in South Africa and started to spike in the UK. I was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time and there was huge pressure for another national lockdown. I probably would have felt the same, if it hadn’t been for my understanding of data which meant I could interrogate what was really happening in South Africa, and that analysis raised questions for me. But, and it’s a big but, that’s only as far as it could take me.
I used to find comfort in the idea that data could always provide a certain answer, black and white was reassuring, but my wife pushed me to think differently. While I’m the quant in our relationship; Akshata is definitely the poet. From our early days together, I’d try and join her for runs around the Loop as an excuse to spend more time with her, and we’d chat as we ran…or more accurately, she would try to run…and I would try to chat.
But as our relationship deepened, she’d encourage me to understand that, without giving up my love of analysis, I also had to tune in and trust my intuition, born of experience and values, however uncomfortable that made me feel. I was also seriously unfit and had the wrong kit, the running was pretty uncomfortable too. Akshata helped me see that data can’t look round corners and it can’t make the decision for you. Through her confidence, I grew to trust my own instinct more too.
At that moment back in December 2021 as Omicron came to the UK, it took intuition, not a spreadsheet, to argue strongly against the prevailing belief that we needed another lockdown, with all the serious consequences involved. It was a big call, but categorically the right one.
The reality is, as a leader, the only decisions that reach your desk are the difficult 50/50 ones, because if a decision can be answered by analysis and data alone someone else will have made it already. And nowhere is that more the case than when you’re sitting behind the Prime Minister’s desk at 10 Downing Street.
So, here’s the thing: as you progress in your careers, learn to listen to your intuition with as much rigour and respect as you do the analysis because if you want to lead, it’s not a question of data or intuition; you’ve got to get comfortable with both.
Akshata Murty: The second lesson is what I learned from Rishi and it’s about the relationship between big idealistic dreams and small practical steps.
I grew up in a country where the gulf between rich and poor was vast. I also grew up in a family where my parents inspired me to bring about widespread change, and I desperately wanted to follow in their footsteps. In my Stanford essay, I spoke about education, impact and service. When I started here, my ideas had crystallised into a die-hard idealism, which I naively saw, I admit now, as somehow morally superior.
Coming to Stanford I hoped to learn from other idealists with big dreams like mine. What I didn’t expect to find, however, was a profound connection with someone whose first question was always “how?”
While we were at the GSB, there was no one more annoying than Rishi on a run, he’d beg to come and then insist on talking to me the whole way round the Loop, wearing a seriously uncool pair of sneakers and three-quarter length cargo shorts with pockets everywhere.
But, there was no one more intriguing than Rishi when he was talking about how to affect social change at scale. I genuinely hadn’t met anyone my age who spoke like that. Style might not have been his thing, but at least there was some substance!
Idealism is inspiring, but he helped me see that if it is untethered from reality, there’s no traction, you float without impact. I learned from him that the path to achieving something transformational takes the gravity of tangible steps in the real world of the everyday. These steps are small, they’re unglamourous and they’re detailed, but they are also crucial for a vision to bear fruit.
Thinking back to Jeffrey Pfeffer’s class called Paths to Power, actually a class I took as my excuse to spend more time with Rishi, we learnt how to get things done. If you think about it like that, an idealist with nothing to show for it is still just an idealist. A practical idealist, however, can achieve the remarkable.
Both Rishi and I believe in the power of education to transform lives and drive social mobility. Both of our families are living proof of this idea. But while that’s a big dream, the gritty question, of course, is HOW? What’s the next step?
In direct answer to that, I founded Lessons at Ten when we were living in Downing Street, to educate and inspire young people in the UK. And earlier this year, Rishi and I launched The Richmond Project to give young people confidence with numbers, to improve their numeracy skills and to build their financial literacy. It’s big idealistic dreams achieved through small practical steps in action.
So, what I learned is that being practical is a power move. It’s not the enemy of idealism, as I once thought, but its running partner, because if you want to make big dreams a reality, it takes both.
Rishi Sunak: The third lesson is what we’ve learned together about the importance of worrying far less about the outcome. It’s a concept known in Sanskrit as Dharma — the idea that we should gain fulfillment from simply doing our personal duty…rather than from the rewards that may come with our efforts.
Akshata Murty: Rishi and I started talking about this, without knowing it, right at the very beginning, as we were just getting to know each other, when we’d meet up in Arbuckle café for breakfast and discuss what the future might hold. That and whether 11 a.m. was too early for a slab of Cold Stone ice cream. Turns out it’s never too early for Rishi by the way. The concept of Dharma has been an ongoing conversation and our guiding principle ever since.
Successes and failures are part of the package that comes with leadership and it doesn’t matter who you are, in business or in politics, you will feel that on a deeply personal level, not least because the criticism can be relentless, noisy and distracting.
Rishi Sunak: Obviously, you don’t walk through the door at Number 10 without understanding this. But I am so grateful that Akshata and I shared a commitment to Dharma, especially at the hardest moments. It got us through together.
In the summer of 2023, I failed in my bid to be leader of the Conservative Party and PM.
It was a real blow but the flip side of that disappointment was that I got to spend time with my family after a gruelling few years. It felt good focusing on being a Member of Parliament, a husband and a dad: our girls were thrilled they got to go to TGI Friday’s more often; the dog was thrilled to go for more walks; and even Akshata was thrilled, I think, to have her running partner back, this time with considerably better gear.
Six weeks later, my predecessor resigned. There had been a run on the pound, inflation was at a 40-year high, and the opposition party had a 36-point poll lead that would require a monumental turnaround, even at the best of times.
Now all politicians, if they’re being truly honest, are a mixture of ambition and duty.
A purely ambitious politician would at this point have sat out the impossible situation. That weekend, Akshata and I were in different places so could only speak on the phone in snatched moments. But she reminded me that my Dharma was clear: it was my duty to do the job because I felt I could help my country in a very difficult situation, and two days later, I became Prime Minister. It was a battlefield promotion at a time of crisis and one I’ll always be proud of.
Akshata Murty: So, here’s the lesson: Dharma isn’t just relevant in public service…it means that you’ll have the resilience and clarity you need to overcome whatever’s thrown at you, without losing your way or being submerged by ego. It’s not only a fulfilling way to live your life; it will enable you to do more than you ever thought possible.
Rishi Sunak: So, thank you class of ’25 for listening to our story of data, dreams and Dharma. The potential of your story is immense, but you can’t achieve that potential alone: surround yourselves with people who can and do challenge your thinking — it might be your T-group of two, it might be a team of 22, it might be the person you’re sitting next to right now…
Whoever they are, find your force multipliers — people who make you think better, sharper and deeper.
Akshata Murty: And stay open to what they say — sometimes it will scare you, sometimes it will annoy you, but always it will help you become a better person.
You will have forged such strong friendships here, take care of those relationships and the differences between you, because they might just be the most consequential forces in your life.
Rishi Sunak: As our fantastic Class of ’06 prepares for our 20-year anniversary next year, and as the GSB celebrates its centennial year, a final thought: We were the first Stanford graduates to live in No. 10 Downing Street. But both Akshata and I have every hope that we are not the last to live behind an important door at an important time, because the world needs global leaders like the ones being honed here.
Akshata Murty: We know you’re going to make Stanford proud, and we will be applauding you all the way.
Rishi Sunak: So get out there…change lives, change organisations, change the world.
