Lord Karan Bilimoria CBE DL is the founder of Cobra Beer, a household brand in the UK and one of the most awarded beers in the world.
Lord Bilimoria is the Founding Chairman of the UK India Business Council, a Lieutenant to His Majesty’s Commission of Lieutenancy for the City of London, and a Deputy Lieutenant (DL) of Greater London.
He served as a Senior Non-Executive Director of the Booker Group, now TESCO PLC, from 2007 to 2016. He is one of the first two visiting entrepreneurs at the University of Cambridge and a founding member of the Prime Minister of India’s Global Advisory Council.
In 2006, Karan Bilimoria was appointed as the Lord Bilimoria of Chelsea, becoming the first-ever Zoroastrian Parsi to sit in the House of Lords.
He is a former Chancellor of Thames Valley University (now the University of West London) and was the youngest university Chancellor at the time of his appointment. From July 2014 to July 2024, he served as the seventh Chancellor of the University of Birmingham, becoming the first Indian-born Chancellor of a Russell Group University in Great Britain. Additionally, he is the President of the UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA). He is an Honorary Life Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), an Honorary Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge, and served as the Chair of the Advisory Board of the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, from 2015 to 2020, after which he was appointed an Honorary Ambassador.
Since 2017, Lord Bilimoria has been a Bynum Tudor Fellow at Kellogg College, University of Oxford, and is a visiting fellow at the University of Oxford, based at the Centre for Corporate Reputation at the Saïd Business School, an Honorary Fellow at the London Business School (LBS) and the recipient of an Honorary Fellowship by Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow.
Karan has been awarded 12 Honorary Doctorates (including from Herriot-Watt, Brunel, Staffordshire, London Metropolitan, Cranfield, Westminster, Exeter, Birmingham, University of West London, York St. John, University of East Anglia, and University of Petroleum and Energy Studies UPES).
He is also a Fellow of the Chartered Association of Business Schools and a Patron of the Small Business Charter. Additionally, Lord Bilimoria is an Honorary Group Captain in 601 Squadron of the Royal Air Force.
He served as President of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) from 2020 to 2022. In November 2022, Karan was appointed Chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) UK in January 2025. In 2008, Lord Bilimoria was awarded the Pravasi Bharti Samman by the President of India. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Ernst & Young (EY) through the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) and graduated in Law from Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge. He is also an alumnus of the Cranfield School of Management, the London Business School, and Harvard Business School through executive education.
Currently, he is pursuing a Business Doctorate at the Cambridge Judge Business School. Karan is a Co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for International Students and Co-chair of the India APPG.
In June 2022, Karan was appointed a Trustee of Policy Exchange. In 2025, Lord Bilimoria became a Co-Chair of the Digital Transformation Taskforce at the B20 South Africa, Patron of The FW de Klerk Foundation and joined the Advisory Council for the Milken Institute’s Investing in Europe’s Competitiveness Initiative.
