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Vivek Ramaswamy (born August 9, 1985) is an American entrepreneur in the healthcare and technology sectors, a political commentator, and a New York Times bestselling author. In 2022, he founded Strive Asset Management and currently serves as the Executive Chairman.^[1] Prior to Strive, he founded the biopharmaceutical company Roivant Sciences. He is the author of Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam, which was published in August 2021,^[2] and Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence, published September 13, 2022.^[3]

Prior to founding Roivant in 2014, Ramaswamy co-founded a technology company and was a partner at an investment firm. Since 2021, he has been writing and speaking against stakeholder capitalism, big tech censorship, and critical race theory more recently.^[4] Dubbed "The C.E.O. of Anti-Woke, Inc." in a 2022 New Yorker profile, Ramaswamy has been described by the Federalist Society as "one of the most compelling conservative voices in the country."^[5][6]

Ramaswamy was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio.^[7][8]

His parents immigrated from Kerala, India. His father, V.G., graduated from a regional engineering college in Kerala, and later worked at General Electric. His mother, Geetha, graduated from Mysore Medical College, and became a geriatric psychiatrist.^[9]

Ramaswamy graduated from St. Xavier High School in Cincinnati in 2003.^[10] In high school he was class valedictorian, a nationally ranked junior tennis player, and an accomplished pianist.

In 2007, Ramaswamy graduated from Harvard College summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with an A.B. in biology. He wrote his senior thesis on the ethical questions raised by creating human-animal chimeras, under his mentor Professor Douglas A. Melton. His thesis was awarded the Bowdoin Prize for Natural Sciences, and a precis version of it was published by The New York Times and The Boston Globe in 2007.^[11][12][13]

In 2013, Ramaswamy received a J.D. from Yale Law School.^[14]

Ramaswamy is married to Apoorva Tewari Ramaswamy, an Assistant Professor at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.^[15][16]

In 2007, Ramaswamy co-founded and served as President of Campus Venture Network, a technology company that provided software and networking resources to university entrepreneurs.^[17] The company was acquired in 2009 by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.^{[citation needed]}

Ramaswamy worked at QVT Financial from 2007 to 2014, where he was a partner and co-managed the firm's biotech portfolio, while simultaneously attending Yale Law School from 2010-2013.^[18]

In 2014, Ramaswamy was the founder of the pharmaceutical company Roivant Sciences, as well as Axovant Sciences, a company that develops gene therapies. Ramaswamy served as CEO of Roivant until 2021. Roivant is focused on applying technology to drug development and has built several subsidiary biotech and healthcare technology companies, several of which are publicly listed.^{[citation needed]}

Ramaswamy appeared on the cover of Forbes magazine in 2015 for his work in drug development.^[19]

Ramaswamy served on the board of directors of Myovant Sciences, a subsidiary of Roivant Sciences focused on the treatment of women's health diseases and other endocrine-related disorders. Myovant, formed in April 2016, raised $218 million in its initial public offering, the largest biotech IPO of 2016.^[20]

Ramaswamy serves on the board of directors of Sumitovant Biopharma. Sumitovant is the result of a $3 billion transaction in 2019 which transferred ownership stakes in five companies in the Roivant family and includes investigational medicines which generated four successful Phase 3 studies in 2019.^[21]

In 2020, Ramaswamy became co-founder of Chapter Medicare, a non-government source for information and resources about Medicare coverage.^[22][23] He also served on the Ohio COVID-19 Response Team.^[24]

In early 2021, Ramaswamy stepped down as CEO of Roivant Sciences to publish Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam, which debuted at #2 on The New York Times bestseller list.^[25]

Ramaswamy is co-founder and executive chairman of Strive Asset Management,^[26] and serves on the boards of directors of The Philanthropy Roundtable, FreOpp, and The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity.^[27][28][29] In 2021, he became a member of the Board of Trustees of St. Xavier High School.^[30]

• — (2007-07-16). "The chimera question". Boston Globe.
• — (2017-03-14). "This Pharma Company Stays Innovative by Doing Two Things". Harvard Business Review. ISSN 0017-8012.
• — (2020-02-12). "The 'Stakeholders' vs. the People". Wall Street Journal.
• — (2020-07-14). "COVID-19 and American Identity". The Dispatch.
• — (2020-08-05). "Antitrust Can't Bust a Monopoly of Ideas". Wall Street Journal.
• — (2020-10-09). "End corporate privilege by limiting limited liability". Newsweek.
• — (2020-10-29). "The Pluralism Within". National Review.
• — (2021-01-11). "Save the Constitution From Big Tech". Wall Street Journal.
• — (2021-01-25). "'Stakeholder Capitalism' Review: The Global, Olympian 'We'". Wall Street Journal.
• — (2021-03-04). "Save America's workers from the church of wokeness". Newsweek.
• — (2021-04-13). "Corporate America's Siege on Democracy". National Review.
• — (2021-06-10). "Which Woke Capitalism?". National Review.
• — (2021-06-21). "Woke, Inc: Why I'm blowing whistle on how corporate America is poisoning society". New York Post.
• — (2021-07-11). "Trump Can Win His Case Against Tech Giants". Wall Street Journal.
• — (2021-08-17). Woke, Inc.: Inside corporate America's Social Justice Scam. New York, NY: Center Street. ISBN 978-1-5460-9078-6. OCLC 1237631944.
• — (2022-09-13). Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence. New York, NY: Center Street. ISBN 978-1-5460-0296-3. OCLC 1546002960.