Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani (born ) is an American convicted

fraudster In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compensa ...

, businessman and former

president President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

and

chief operating officer A chief operating officer or chief operations officer, also called a COO, is one of the highest-ranking executive positions in an organization, composing part of the "C-suite". The COO is usually the second-in-command at the firm, especially if t ...

Theranos Theranos Inc. () was an American privately held corporation that was touted as a breakthrough health technology company. Founded in 2003 by then 19-year-old Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos raised more than US$700 million from venture capitalists and ...

, which was a

privately held A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is ...

health technology Health technology is defined by the World Health Organization as the "application of organized knowledge and skills in the form of devices, medicines, vaccines, procedures, and systems developed to solve a health problem and improve quality of liv ...

company founded by his then-girlfriend

Elizabeth Holmes Elizabeth Anne Holmes (born February 3, 1984) is an American convicted fraudster and former biotechnology entrepreneur. In 2003, Holmes founded and was the chief executive officer (CEO) of Theranos, a now-defunct health technology company that ...

. He was the second most important figure in the collapse of Theranos and its fraudulent claims to investors, that they had devised a revolutionary

blood test A blood test is a laboratory analysis performed on a blood sample that is usually extracted from a vein in the arm using a hypodermic needle, or via fingerprick. Multiple tests for specific blood components, such as a glucose test or a cholester ...

that used very small amounts of blood such as that from a

fingerstick In medicine, some blood tests are conducted on capillary blood obtained by fingerstick (or fingerprick) (or, for neonates, by an analogous heelprick). The site, free of surface arterial flow, where the blood is to be collected is sterilized with ...

. Starting in 2015, Theranos came under criticism in the media due to its questionable claims and practices. The company was eventually liquidated. Balwani and Holmes were criminally charged by federal authorities for operating the business as a multi-million-dollar scheme to defraud investors and patients. Holmes was found guilty and sentenced to 135 months in prison on November 18, 2022. On July 7, 2022, Balwani was found guilty on all counts. On December 7, 2022 he was sentenced to 12 years and 11 months, plus three years of probation, with a surrender date by March 15, 2023.

Early life and education

Ramesh Balwani was born in

Sindh Sindh (; ; ur, , ; historically romanized as Sind) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the southeastern region of the country, Sindh is the third-largest province of Pakistan by land area and the second-largest province ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

into an upper middle-class

Sindhi Hindu Sindhi Hindus are Sindhis who follow the Hindu religion, whose origins lie in the Sindh region and spread across modern-day India and Pakistani Sindh province. After the Partition of India in 1947, many Sindhi Hindus were among those who fled f ...

farming family. He attended

Aitchison College Aitchison College ( ur, ایچیسن کالج) is an independent, semi-private boys school for boarding and day students from grade 1–13 in Lahore, Pakistan. It has a tradition of providing an education that uses academics, sports, and co-curri ...

, a prestigious boarding school in

Lahore Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city. ...

. He stayed there until 1984, receiving an education the British colonialists had designated for "youths of good family". Balwani speaks Sindhi, his native language and

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

and English. His family eventually moved to

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

"because being a Hindu in a mostly all-Muslim country of Pakistan was very difficult" according to Balwani's personal lawyer. Later they

immigrated Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...

to the United States. In the Spring 1987 semester, Balwani began undergraduate studies at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

as an international student where he was a member of the Pakistani Students Association. "He was very patriotically Pakistani," said one friend of Balwani's at the time, "He was one of us." Balwani left the campus sometime after 1991 to begin working; he would eventually complete a degree, but not until 1997 with a bachelor's in

information systems An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, information storage, store, and information distribution, distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems a ...

. Despite research into the question by ''The New York Times'', it is unknown when, or why, he took the nickname "Sunny". In official documents from the late 1990s, and on divorce papers from 2002, he was known as Ramesh, his given name. By 2012, he was signing papers at Theranos as Sunny Balwani.

Career

In the 1990s, Balwani worked for

Lotus Software Lotus Software (called Lotus Development Corporation before its acquisition by IBM) was an American software company based in Massachusetts; it was "offloaded" to India's HCL Technologies in 2018. Lotus is most commonly known for the Lotus 1-2- ...

and

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

. During Balwani's tenure at Microsoft he worked in sales. He claims to have written thousands of lines of code; however, independent investigations could not verify this, and numerous Microsoft managers who were asked about him could not remember him. While at Microsoft, he met a Japanese artist, Keiko Fujimoto, who became his wife. In late 1999 he joined CommerceBid.com as President. It was a software development company that helped businesses buy and sell items via auctions over the burgeoning Internet. In 1999, the company was purchased by

Commerce One Commerce One, Inc. was a B2B e-commerce company that used online auctions to connect business to their suppliers. At the peak of the dot-com bubble, the company had a market capitalization of $21.5 billion. The company's technologies included ...

, another business development software company with a high valuation. The buyout was done entirely with stock, and Balwani joined the board of the new company. In July 2000, 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 The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...

burst. He later went back to school and received a

Master of Business Administration A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

in 2003. He spent another four years in a computer science graduate program at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, but dropped out in 2008. While enrolled at Berkeley, Balwani, who was 37 at the time, met

, who was 18 and in her senior year of high school. Holmes pursued an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering at Stanford, but later dropped out to focus full-time on Theranos.

Theranos

Balwani joined Theranos in 2009. He ran the company's day-to-day operations as its president. He 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. He was described by former Theranos employees as overbearing, uncompromising and so concerned about

industrial espionage Industrial espionage, economic espionage, corporate spying, or corporate espionage is a form of espionage conducted for commercial purposes instead of purely national security. While political espionage is conducted or orchestrated by governmen ...

that he verged on

paranoia Paranoia is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concer ...

. Within Theranos, Balwani was known for using technical terms he seemingly did not understand in what others believed were attempts to appear more knowledgeable. Note: the British edition of ''Bad Blood'' incorrectly gives Balwani's country of origin as India. Balwani at one point claimed "This invention he Edison blood testing deviceis going to be way up there, um, with – with the discovery of antibiotics." He once misheard "

end effector In robotics, an end effector is the device at the end of a robotic arm, designed to interact with the environment. The exact nature of this device depends on the application of the robot. In the strict definition, which originates from serial ro ...

" (the claw or other device at the end of an automated robot's arm) as "endofactor" (a nonsense word) and repeated the error throughout a meeting, furthermore not noticing when "Endofactor" was subsequently used as a prank in a

PowerPoint Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation program, created by Robert Gaskins and Dennis Austin at a software company named Forethought, Inc. It was released on April 20, 1987, initially for Macintosh computers only. Microsoft acquired PowerPoi ...

presentation. ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'' reported in October 2015 that the Edison blood testing device by Theranos produced inaccurate medical diagnoses and results. Edison machines frequently failed quality-control checks and produced widely varying results, a finding that was corroborated in a report released in March 2016 by the federal

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), is a federal agency within the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that administers the Medicare program and works in partnership with state governments to administer M ...

(CMS). In April 2016, Theranos told regulators it had voided all test results from Edison machines for 2014 and 2015, as well as some other tests it ran on conventional machines. In January 2016, the CMS sent a warning letter to Theranos after inspecting its Newark, California, laboratory. CMS regulators proposed a two-year ban on Balwani from owning or operating a blood lab after the company had not fixed problems within its California lab in March 2016. The other charges of fraud against Theranos include claiming the company's technology was being used by the

U.S. Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secur ...

in combat situations despite never having been used. Another false claim included claiming a $100 million revenue stream in 2014 that was actually $100,000. Balwani departed from his position at Theranos in May 2016.

Legal proceedings

SEC fraud charges

In March 2018, Balwani and Holmes were charged by the SEC with

securities fraud Securities fraud, also known as stock fraud and investment fraud, is a deceptive practice in the stock or commodities markets that induces investors to make purchase or sale decisions on the basis of false information, frequently resulting in los ...

, "raising more than $700 million from investors through an elaborate, years-long fraud in which they exaggerated or made false statements about the company's technology, business, and financial performance". Holmes settled the case out of court without admitting or denying wrongdoing, but Balwani is still in litigation as of 2022. He says he is innocent of the charges.

''United States v. Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani''

On June 15, 2018, following an investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Francisco that lasted more than two years, a federal grand jury indicted president Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani and CEO Elizabeth Holmes on nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Prosecutors allege that Holmes and Balwani engaged in two criminal schemes, one to defraud investors, the other to defraud patients. In March 2020, a U.S. District Court Judge ordered that Balwani will stand trial separately from Holmes. In January 2022, Holmes was found guilty on multiple counts of fraud. On July 7, 2022, Balwani was found guilty on all counts and faced up to 20 years in prison and millions of dollars in restitution. He received a sentence of 12 years 11 months in prison, plus three years of probation on December 7, 2022. He will begin serving his sentence no later than March 15, 2023.

Personal life

He was married to Japanese artist Keiko Fujimoto. Fujimoto and Balwani lived in San Francisco before their divorce in December 2002. Balwani was in a romantic relationship with

during his tenure at Theranos. Holmes met him in 2002 at age 18, while still in school. He was 19 years older than Holmes and married at the time. Their relationship was not disclosed to their Theranos investors. During her trial, Holmes testified that she had been raped while she was a student at

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

and that she had sought solace from Balwani in the aftermath of the incident. She also claimed that during her romantic relationship with Balwani, which lasted more than a decade, he was a very controlling figure and that he berated and sexually abused her. In her court testimony, Holmes stated that Balwani wanted to "kill the person" she was and make her into a "new Elizabeth". However, she later testified that 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. In court filings, Balwani and his ex-wife Fujimoto have "categorically" denied abuse allegations, calling them "false and inflammatory". Balwani was portrayed by

Naveen Andrews Naveen William Sidney Andrews (born 17 January 1969) is a British-American actor. He is best known for his role as Sayid Jarrah in the television series ''Lost'' (2004–2010), for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and a Primetime ...

in the 2022 miniseries ''

The Dropout ''The Dropout'' is an American biographical crime drama miniseries created by Elizabeth Meriwether, based on the podcast of the same name hosted by Rebecca Jarvis and produced by ABC News. The series documents the disgraced biotechnology compa ...

'', which documented his relationship with Holmes and his role within Theranos.

References

External links

* In the archive video, click the blank video screen to begin playing and on the sound-bar to enable sound. {{DEFAULTSORT:Balwani, Ramesh 1965 births Living people American people convicted of fraud American people of Indian descent American people of Pakistani descent American people of Sindhi descent American Hindus American chief operating officers American technology executives Haas School of Business alumni Pakistani emigrants to India Indian emigrants to the United States Microsoft employees Theranos people University of Texas at Austin alumni Sindhi people Indian Hindus Pakistani Hindus