Sunny Varkey

Who is Sunny Varkey?

Sunny Varkey is an education entrepreneur and is chairman of GEMS Education, a family-owned business. He is a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Education Partnerships.

Son of Indian expatriates who went to Dubai in 1959, Sunny Varkey never went beyond high school himself. In the 1980, he took over management of his parents' Our Own English School and transformed it in three decades, doing everything from laying bricks for school buildings to driving the school bus. Today his GEMS Education is the largest operator of private kindergarten-to-grade-12 schools in the world.It has a network of 124 schools with over 130,000 students, 11,000 teachers, all over the Middle East, Africa, Europe, China, and India. The business also has a consultancy that advises governments and nonprofits. Bill Clinton is honorary chairman of his Varkey GEMS Foundation, which aims to have a positive impact on the lives of 100 impoverished children for each child enrolled at a GEMS school.