Karan Bilimoria

Karan Bilimoria was born in Hyderabad, India, in 1961, the son of an army general, and struggled through school with undiagnosed dyslexia that made reading and written work exhausting long before anyone understood why. He nonetheless qualified as a chartered accountant in India and then moved to Britain to study law at Cambridge, working nights to fund his studies since his family could not support him abroad.

While in Britain he noticed that Indian restaurants, then rapidly growing in popularity, had no beer specifically brewed to suit spicy food, since most British lagers were designed for other tastes entirely. In 1989, with a colleague, he founded Cobra Beer, developing a smoother, less gassy lager intended to complement curry, and began selling it himself, physically delivering cases from the back of his car to restaurants that were often reluctant to try an unknown brand from a young, largely unfunded founder.

The business grew slowly through direct relationships with restaurant owners before expanding into supermarkets and pubs, eventually becoming one of Britain's best known beer brands, though it went through a serious financial crisis in 2009 that required restructuring and a partnership with a larger brewer to survive. Bilimoria has spoken openly about how his dyslexia shaped his approach, forcing him to rely on listening, memory and delegation rather than written material.

He was later appointed to the House of Lords and became a prominent advocate for entrepreneurship, immigration reform and support for dyslexic students in British schools.