Who is Vivek Ramaswamy? Flash Uganda Media looks at his biography, age, wife, family, tribe, achievements, and relationship with Ganapathy Ramaswamy, Apoorva Ramaswamy Tewari, Shankar Ramaswamy, the early life and education of the founder of Roivant Sciences, a pharmaceutical company.
Vivek Ramaswamy also known as Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy is an American businessman, best-selling author and political candidate.
In February 2023, Ramaswamy confirmed his candidature for the Republican Party nomination in the 2024 United States presidential election.
Ramaswamy is the founder of Roivant Sciences, a pharmaceutical company which he established in 2014.
Early Life and Education
Vivek Ramaswamy was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on August 9, 1985, to Indian Hindu immigrants.
Vivek’s father, Ganapathy Ramaswamy, is a graduate of the National Institute of Technology Calicut. He also worked for General Electric as an engineer and patent attorney.
Geetha Ramaswamy, a graduate of Mysore Medical College & Research Institute who worked as a geriatric psychiatrist is his mother.
His parents moved from Kerala’s Palakkad region, where the family-owned an ancestral home in a traditional agraharam in Vadakkencherry to Ohio.
Vivek Ramaswamy grew up attending public schools until eighth grade in Cincinnati, Ohio.
He subsequently went on to St. Xavier High School in Cincinnati, a Catholic school linked with the Jesuit order, where he graduated as valedictorian in 2003.
Ramaswamy earned a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, in biology from Harvard University in 2007 and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
At Harvard, he was known as a bold and confident libertarian. He was a member of the Harvard Political Union and later served as its president.
While in college, he performed Eminem covers and libertarian-themed rap songs as “Da Vek” and interned for the hedge firm Amaranth Advisors and the investment bank Goldman Sachs.
Ramaswamy received a post-graduate fellowship from the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans in 2011, which he used to attend Yale Law School.
Later, Ramaswamy stated that he was already affluent from his involvement in the finance, pharmaceutical, and biotech industries by the time he attended Yale.
In 2013, he received his Juris Doctorate.
Vivek’s Family and Beliefs
Apoorva Ramaswamy Tewari, Vivek’s wife, is a laryngologist and assistant professor in the Department of Otolaryngology at Ohio State University.
They met while he was studying law at Yale and she was studying medicine. They got married in 2015 and have since then produced two children both boys.
Ramaswamy and his family were regulars at the Dayton Hindu temple. His conservative Christian piano teacher, who taught him privately from elementary to high school, influenced his social beliefs as well.
Ramaswamy is a Hindu monotheist. According to family members, he speaks Tamil fluently and understands (but does not speak) Malayalam. He eats only vegetables. Ramaswamy identified as an animal rights activist in 2020, arguing that it is “wrong to kill sentient animals for culinary pleasure.”
He received a Bowdoin Prize for his final thesis on the ethical issues addressed by developing human-animal chimaeras.
Ramaswamy stated in a 2023 interview that while a law student, he was a member of the university Jewish intellectual discussion organization Shabtai.
Career and Professional Work Experience
Business Career
Ramaswamy and Travis May co-founded Campus Venture Network in 2007, which launched a private social networking website for university students interested in starting their own businesses.
In 2009, the company was sold to the non-profit Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
From 2007 to 2014, Ramaswamy worked for the hedge firm QVT Financial. He co-managed the firm’s biotech portfolio as a partner.
Under Ramaswamy, QVT made biotech investments in Palatin Technologies, Concert Pharmaceuticals, Pharmasset, and Martin Shkreli’s Retrophin.
Ramaswamy launched the biotechnology firm Roivant Sciences in 2014; the term “Roi” refers to the return on investment.
In 2015, Ramaswamy funded $360 million for Roivant subsidiary Axovant Sciences in an attempt to commercialize intepirdine as an Alzheimer’s disease treatment.
The business stated in September 2017 that intepirdine had failed in its big clinical trial. The company’s worth plummeted; it dropped 75% in one day and continued to fall after that.
Ramaswamy and Masayoshi Son reached a partnership in 2017 in which SoftBank financed $1.1 billion in Roivant.
Roivant sold its ownership in five subsidiaries (or “vants”), including Enzyvant, to Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma in 2019, earning Ramaswamy $175 million in capital gains.
With Ramaswamy’s backing, Roivant Sciences created a nonprofit social-impact branch, Roivant Social Ventures (RSV), in 2020.
Ramaswamy co-founded Chapter Medicare, a Medicare navigation tool, in 2020. He was a member of the COVID-19 Response Team in Ohio.
Shankar Ramaswamy, Ramaswamy’s younger brother worked with him at Axovant and then co-founded Kriya Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical startup.
Ramaswamy co-founded Strive Asset Management, a Columbus, Ohio-based asset management firm, in early 2022. Strive’s main fund, DRLL, was introduced in 2022 as an “anti-woke” energy sector index fund.
Ramaswamy served as Strive’s executive chairman before stepping down in February 2023 to focus on his presidential campaign.
Political Campaign
Vivek Ramaswamy voted for the Libertarian Party presidential nominee in 2004 but did not vote in 2008, 2012, or 2016. During this time, he described himself as apolitical. He however backed Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
Ramaswamy registered to vote as “unaffiliated” in Franklin County, Ohio, in November 2021 but described himself as a Republican.
On Tucker Carlson Tonight on February 21, 2023, Ramaswamy declared his campaign for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in 2024.
During his campaign, Ramaswamy described himself as an “unapologetic American nationalist,” and he repeatedly criticised DeSantis while avoiding direct criticism of Trump.
Vivek Ramaswamy’s Net Worth and Achievements
In 2023, Ramaswamy’s campaign advisor indicated that his net worth exceeded $1 billion; Forbes projected it to be more than $950 million.
In 2016, he was residing in Manhattan. He owned a house in Butler County, Ohio, in 2021, but the only property he recorded having in 2023 was a house in Columbus, Ohio, in Franklin County.
He stated in 2023 that he had a net worth of roughly $15 million even before graduating from law school.
He is the bestselling author of Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam, as well as Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit.
He also authored the ‘Path Back to Excellence, and Capitalist Punishment: How Wall Street is Using Your Money to Create a Country You Didn’t Vote For’.
Controversies
Vivek Ramaswamy has supported both Democrats and Republicans.
In 2016, he contributed $2,700 to Dena Grayson’s campaign for Congress in Florida and between 2020 and 2023, he donated $30,000 to the Ohio Republican Party.
Ramaswamy has sought to appeal to evangelical Christian nationalist voters during his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, even though he is a non-Christian presidential candidate, a Hindu.
Ramaswamy’s campaign revealed in May 2023 that he had paid an editor to change his Wikipedia biography before announcing his candidacy, but maintained that the payment was politically motivated.
He also opposes environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) efforts.
Editor’s Note: Please contact [email protected] if you find any of the content to be inaccurate or outdated.
