Meet Sunny Varkey, high-school pass billionaire with net worth over Rs 17,000 crore, built world's largest K-12 schools

We hear about lots of people who made it big in life with their dedicated hard work and strong will even when they had only a basic education. Sunny Varkey is one of those people.  Sunny Varkey is a Dubai-based education entrepreneur and philanthropist. Varkey is the founder and executive chairman of the global advisory and educational management firm GEMS Education. GEMS Education is the largest operator of private kindergarten-to-grade-12 schools in the world, with a network of over 80 schools in various countries.  

Sunny Varkey also chairs the umbrella business organisation the Varkey Group. He is the founder and trustee of the philanthropic Varkey Foundation. 

Sunny Varkey was born in 1957 in Kerala, India. Both his parents were educators. The family decided to move to Dubai in 1959. Although, Sunny returned to India for his education and did his schooling at Infant Jesus Anglo-Indian Boy's School. He went to the UK to complete high school. 

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After the discovery of oil in Dubai, many foreigners reached the country in search of work increasing the demand for learning English. It was during this time that Sunny's parents opened a school called 'Our own English High School'. 

After the school started to work well, Sunny took over the business and set up new schools. He opened British, Indian, and Pakistani schools. In 2000 Varkey established Global Education Management Systems (GEMS), an advisory and educational management firm, in advance of his worldwide overseas expansion.

As of 2022, Sunny Varkey's net worth is Rs 17,000 crore. In 2020, he also secured the 76th rank in the richest Indians list.