Speaker Profile: Karan Bilimoria

Speaker Profile: Lord Karan Bilimoria

Karan Faridoon Bilimoria, The Lord Bilimoria of Chelsea CBE, DL (born 26 November 1961, in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India) is an Indian-origin British entrepreneur and a life peer. He is best known as one of the two founders and Chairman of Cobra Beer.

Karan Bilimoria was born in Hyderabad, India into a Zoroastrian Parsi family that has a background in the armed forces and business.

Karan did his early schooling in Hyderabad where the family lived at his mother's ancestral home, Anand Bhavan, while his father served in different military stations in the country. When he was still nineteen, Karan received his Bachelor of Commerce degree from Osmania University in Hyderabad in 1981. On receiving a scholarship, he then moved to London where he qualified as a chartered accountant with what is today Ernst & Young and received a diploma in accounting from the London Metropolitan University. Thereafter he read law at Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge

In 1993 he married Lynne Heather Walker, a South African national, who he met through mutual friends, an English and Latin graduate of Rhodes University.

During the India tour of the Cambridge polo team, Karan began to import polo sticks from India, selling these successfully and profitably to Harrod's and Lillywhites. He also experimented with importing fashion goods, fabrics, and other products from India.

In 1989, along with his friend Arjun Reddy, Karan founded Cobra Beer in a little flat in Fulham. The idea for the beer had come up while he was a student at Cambridge, and regularly ate his meals at Indian restaurants. He noticed that regular lager was too gassy and bloating to be enjoyed with food, while ale was too bitter to accompany a meal. The concept for a beer that had 'the refreshing qualities of a lager' with the 'smoothness and drinkability of an ale' that could go with food- in particular, Indian food and curry- was born in his mind then. And in 1989, after concluding his import-export ventures, Karan and Arjun Reddy started Cobra Beer.

At the time Karan had a student debt of £20,000, and funds to start the business were not easy to find. Borrowing money from various sources and £30,000 from a bank, Cobra commenced operations.

Since marketing on a large scale was not an option because of the paucity of funds, penetrating Britain's highly competitive beer market required an innovative approach.

Karan himself delivered cases of Cobra to Indian restaurants, where it became very popular with customers. Within five years, the one million mark in sales revenues was crossed. Cobra began to be served across the United Kingdom in thousands of Indian restaurants and the business began to grow, expanding into the pub and bar sector and also being sold in major supermarket chains. In 1999, the company diversified into wine. By 2001 Cobra, from which Karan's partner had now exited, had a turnover of nearly £13 million with a sales growth rate of nearly 60% per year, and was being brewed locally in the UK by Charles Wells Ltd.

By 2007 Cobra was being sold in over 45 countries, and had a total production capacity of 450,000 cases per month. Revenues stood at £30 million and, with rapid expansion, were expected to cross £100 million by 2010.

Karan was appointed a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 2004 for his services to business and entrepreneurship.[21] In June 2006 he was appointed an Independent Crossbench Peer in the House of Lords and created Baron Bilimoria of Chelsea in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. He is the first ever Zoroastrian Parsi to sit in the House of Lords.

Karan has since 2007 been a Non-Executive Director and Senior Independent Director of the Booker Group PLC, the UK's largest wholesale operator. Since 2011 he has been Chairman of Molson Coors Cobra India, a joint venture between Cobra Beer and Molson Coors in India.

He is also:

Founding Member of the Prime Minister of India's Global Advisory Council (2010-)

Founding Chairman and President of the UK India Business Council (2007-2009)

Chairman of the University of Cambridge India Partnership Advisory Board (2009-2012)

Chairman of the Memorial Gates Committee (2003-2009)

Chairman of the SME (Small and Medium Size Enterprise) Board (2001-2005)

Vice Chairman of the Asian Business Association (2003-2008)