Lord Karan Bilimoria, CBE

Lord Karan Bilimoria, commander of the Order of the British Empire and deputy lieutenant, is a senior fellow at the Milken Institute and the founder of Cobra Beer, a household brand in the UK and one of the most awarded beers in the world. In 2006, he was appointed Lord Bilimoria of Chelsea, becoming the first Zoroastrian Parsi to sit in the House of Lords.

In January 2025, Bilimoria was appointed chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce United Kingdom. He served as president of the Confederation of British Industry from 2020 to 2022. In June 2022, he was appointed a trustee of Policy Exchange. In 2025, he became cochair of the Digital Transformation Taskforce at the Business 20 South Africa, patron of the FW de Klerk Foundation, senior fellow at the Milken Institute Europe, and a member of the advisory council for the Milken Institute’s Investing in Europe’s Competitiveness Initiative.

From July 2014 to July 2024, Lord Bilimoria served as the seventh chancellor of the University of Birmingham, becoming the first Indian-born chancellor of a Russell Group university in Great Britain. 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. Since 2017, he 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. He is also an honorary fellow at the London Business School and a recipient of an honorary fellowship from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. From 2015 to 2020, he served as chair of the advisory board of the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, after which he was appointed an honorary ambassador. 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.

Lord Bilimoria is a cochair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for International Students and cochair of the India APPG. Additionally, he is the president of the UK Council for International Student Affairs. He is an Honorary Life Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce and an honorary fellow of Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge. He has been awarded 12 honorary doctorates, including from Heriot-Watt University, Brunel University, Staffordshire University, London Metropolitan University, Cranfield University, the University of Westminster, the University of Exeter, the University of Birmingham, the University of West London, York St John University, the University of East Anglia, and the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies. 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.

In 2008, Lord Bilimoria was awarded the Pravasi Bharti Samman by the president of India. He served as a senior nonexecutive director of the Booker Group, now Tesco PLC, from 2007 to 2016. He 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 DL of Greater London.

Lord Bilimoria qualified as a chartered accountant with Ernst & Young through the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and graduated in law from Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge. He is also an alumnus of Cranfield School of Management, London Business School, and Harvard Business School through executive education. He is currently pursuing a business doctorate at the Cambridge Judge Business School.