Lord Karan Bilimoria CBE DL

Lord Bilimoria, one of the UK’s leading entrepreneurs, joined the College as a Governor in 2013.

Lord Bilimoria founded Cobra Beer in 1989 and is currently Chairman of the Cobra Beer Partnership Limited – a Joint Venture with Molson Coors, and Chairman of Molson Coors Cobra India. He was a former Senior Non-Executive Director of the Booker Group now TESCO PLC from 2007-2016, and is a founding member of the Prime Minister of India’s Global Advisory Council.

In 2006, Karan Bilimoria was appointed the Lord Bilimoria of Chelsea – the first ever Zoroastrian Parsi to sit in the House of Lords, where he serves as an Independent Crossbench Peer.

A former Chancellor of Thames Valley University (now the University of West London); Lord Bilimoria was the youngest University Chancellor in the UK when appointed. In 2014, he was appointed as the 7th Chancellor of the University of Birmingham. He is also an Honorary Fellow of Sidney Sussex College Cambridge and was Chair of the Advisory Board of the Judge Business School, Cambridge University from 2015-2020 and subsequently appointed as an Honorary Ambassador.

Lord Bilimoria is President of the UK Council for International Students Affairs (UKCISA), a role he has held since 2015, and in June 2020, he was appointed President of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).

Further details of Lord Bilimoria’s career in business and politics can be found here.