Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani was born on June 13,1965 and is an American businessman who was the former president and chief operating officer of Theranos, which was a privately held health technology company founded by his then-girlfriend Elizabeth Holmes.
29 Facts About Sunny Balwani
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Sunny Balwani was found guilty on all counts, and was sentenced to 12 years and 11 months, plus three years of probation and surrendered on April 20,2023.
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Holmes and Sunny Balwani were further ordered to pay $452 million to the victims of the fraud, with responsibility for the payment shared between them.
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Sunny Balwani was portrayed by Naveen Andrews in the 2022 miniseries The Dropout, which documented his relationship with Holmes and his role within Theranos.
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Ramesh Sunny Balwani was born in West Pakistan, into an upper middle-class Sindhi Hindu farming family.
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Sunny Balwani attended Aitchison College, a prestigious boarding school in Lahore, until 1984.
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The buyout was done entirely with stock, and Sunny Balwani joined the board of the new company.
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In July 2000, Sunny Balwani sold his shares in Commerce One, netting nearly $40 million shortly before the company went out of business, just before the dot com bubble burst.
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Sunny Balwani later went back to school and received a Master of Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business in 2003.
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Sunny Balwani spent another four years in a computer science graduate program at Stanford University, but dropped out in 2008.
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Sunny Balwani ran the company's day-to-day operations as its president.
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Sunny Balwani had no training in biological sciences or medical devices, which became an issue due to the absence of medical experts on the company's board of directors and Balwani's behavior.
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Sunny Balwani was described by former Theranos employees as overbearing, uncompromising and so concerned about industrial espionage that he verged on paranoia.
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CMS regulators proposed a two-year ban on Sunny Balwani from owning or operating a blood lab after the company had not fixed problems within its California lab in March 2016.
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Sunny Balwani departed from his position at Theranos in May 2016.
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Holmes settled the case out of court without admitting or denying wrongdoing, but Sunny Balwani was still in litigation as of 2022.
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Prosecutors alleged that Holmes and Sunny Balwani engaged in two criminal schemes, one to defraud investors, the other to defraud patients.
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In March 2020, a US District Court Judge ordered that Sunny Balwani would stand trial separately from Holmes.
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On July 7,2022, Sunny Balwani was found guilty on all counts and faced up to 20 years in prison and millions of dollars in restitution.
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Sunny Balwani received a sentence of 12 years 11 months in prison, plus three years of probation on December 7,2022.
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Sunny Balwani was ordered to self-surrender by March 15,2023, which a judge later amended to March 16.
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Sunny Balwani moved for appellate bail, but the judge denied his motion, citing a low likelihood of the appeal succeeding.
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Sunny Balwani later appealed this ruling, which triggered an automatic stay of his sentence.
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Sunny Balwani was incarcerated at Federal Correctional Institution, Terminal Island, in San Pedro, California.
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In May 2023 during the restitution phase, Holmes and Sunny Balwani were ordered to pay $452 million to the victims of the fraud, with responsibility for the payment shared between them.
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Fujimoto and Sunny Balwani lived in San Francisco before their divorce in December 2002.
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Sunny Balwani was in a romantic relationship with Elizabeth Holmes during his tenure at Theranos.
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Sunny Balwani was 19 years older than Holmes and married at the time.
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However, she later testified that Sunny Balwani had not forced her to make the false statements to investors, business partners, journalists and company directors that had been described in the case.