About
Vivek Ramaswamy is the author of Woke Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam (2021) and cofounder and former executive chairman of Strive Asset Management, an investment company with financial backing from billionaires and far-right activists Peter Thiel and J.D. Vance. Ramaswamy still owns 50-75% of Strive shares, according to a June 15, 2023 SEC filing. After announcing his candidacy in the GOP presidential primary, the 38-year-old entrepreneur resigned from active involvement in Strive in early 2023 and contributed $10 million to his own campaign in the first quarter. He professes to be ready to “gut the federal government,” as The Atlantic reported in an August 2023 profile, and seems to back conspiracy theories about government involvement in both the 9/11 and January 6 attacks on the country.
Born and raised in Ohio, Ramaswamy frequently brandishes his first-generation American credentials (both his parents are immigrants from India) to boost his Horatio Alger image. Prior to launching Strive in 2022, he built on his background in biotech investing by founding the biopharmaceutical company Roivant Sciences.
Ramaswamy is also a board member of the Philanthropy Roundtable and the right-wing think tank Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, the latter being an associate member of the State Policy Network (SPN). He holds a bachelor’s in biology from Harvard and a law degree from Yale.
In 2022, Ramaswamy received the State Financial Officers Foundation (SFOF) Honors Lifetime Achievement Award.
Actions
- Delivered the keynote at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship 2023 conference on “good governance and ‘the farce’ of ESG (10/31/23)
- Delivered the keynote breakfast address at the Texas Public Policy Foundation‘s Texas Policy Summit 2023 (3/3/23)
- Delivered the keynote address at the Council for National Policy’s February 2023 meeting at the Trump National Doral Miami (2/11/23)
- Spoke on “Taking on Woke, Inc.: Tackling Identity Politics and ESG in Corporate America” at The Heritage Foundation‘s 2023 Awakening conference with Andy Olivastro, vice president of outreach at Heritage (1/7/23)
- Participated in a panel moderated by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (R) titled “ESG Investment Decisions—Understanding the Legal & Fiduciary Requirements” at the National Association of Attorneys General Capital Forum. Other panelists included: Karl Racine, the District of Columbia’s attorney general; Jonathan Skrmetti, Tennessee’s attorney general; and Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, senior associate dean for leadership studies and Lester Crown Professor of Leadership Practice at Yale School of Management (12/6/22)
- Delivered the closing keynote at the SFOF Fall National Meeting (11/14/22)
- Spoke on the panel titled “The Truth About ESG and Investing Your Values” at Liberty University’s 2022 CEO Summit moderated by Jerry Bowyer and featuring Economic War Room’s Kevin Freeman, Sovereign Capital’s John Coleman, PayPal’s Rod Martin, State Financial Officers Foundation’s Derek Kreifels, and QCI Capital Fund’s Steven Melanson (10/6/22)
- Spoke on “How States Can Fight the Woke Industrial Complex” at the American Legislative Exchange Council 2022 Annual Meeting (8/1/22)
- Participated in an “Educational Roundtable on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)” at the Idaho State Capitol hosted by Idaho State Treasurer Julie Ellsworth with U.S. Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID), SFOF CEO Derek Kreifels, Utah State Treasurer Marlo Oaks, Idaho State Representative Sage Dixon (R), and Idaho State Senator Steve Vick (R) (6/7/22)
- Spoke on a panel at The Heritage Foundation’s 2022 Resource Bank meeting moderated by Andy Olivastro, vice president of outreach at Heritage, titled “Taking on the ESG Overlords” with Will Hild, executive director, Consumers’ Research; Andy Puzder, a senior fellow at Heritage ; and John Murante, Nebraska state treasurer (6/1/22)
- Participated in a panel discussion at the 2022 SFOF National Meeting titled “China Discussion: Why Should We Be Concerned?” hosted by Nebraska State Treasurer John Murante that included Peter Schweizer, author of Red Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win (2/16/22)
- Delivered remarks on woke capitalism at the Council for National Policy‘s September 2021 meeting (9/24/21)