Karan Bilimoria, Baron Bilimoria

In 1931, his paternal grandfather, Nasservanji D. Bilimoria, was one of the first Indians to be commissioned as an officer into the Indian Army from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and he retired as a Brigadier.

Bilimoria's father, Faridoon Noshir Bilimoria (1933–2005), popularly known as 'General Billy', had a long and distinguished career in the Indian Army.

As a young, newly commissioned officer, he served as ADC to the first President of India, Rajendra Prasad.

Many years later, he commanded the 2/5 Gorkha Rifles (Frontier Force) during the Bangladesh Liberation War.

He later served as General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Indian Army's Central Command.

Her mother, Aimai Italia née Bharucha of Hyderabad, was the daughter of D.D. Italia, a Hyderabad-based businessman and politician who served as a member of the Rajya Sabha in the 1950s (this was Karan's maternal great-grandfather).

Both his mother and maternal grandfather were educated in Britain at Birmingham University.

Bilimoria did his early schooling in Hyderabad from Hyderabad Public School at Begumpet, Hyderabad where the family lived at his mother's ancestral home, Anand Bhavan, while his father served in different military stations in the country.

As he grew, his family began to accompany his father, and Bilimoria attended seven different schools before he was sent to board at Hebron School in the Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu, alongside his younger brother, Nadir.

Karan Faridoon Bilimoria, Baron Bilimoria, (born 26 November 1961) is a British Indian businessman, member of the House of Lords, and Chancellor of the University of Birmingham.

Bilimoria founded the global beer brand, Cobra Beer and is the company's chairman.

In addition to his business activity, Bilimoria is a politically active independent crossbench member of the House of Lords, serves as Chancellor of the University of Birmingham and President of the Confederation of British Industry.

Karan Bilimoria was born in Hyderabad, India into a Zoroastrian Parsi family which hailed from Gujarat.

As the surname 'Bilimoria' denotes, the ancestral home of the family is the small town of Bilimora, situated on the banks of the river Ambika, in Gandevi taluka of Navsari district of Gujarat state.

Bilimoria's family had a strong background in trade and commerce, but his father and both his grandfathers served in the Indian armed forces.

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, Cambridge.

While at Cambridge, Bilimoria played on the university's polo team, organising their first ever tour of India, receiving a Half-Blue in 1988, and led the debating team against Oxford for two years, becoming also the vice-president of the Cambridge Union before graduating in 1988.

During the India tour of the Cambridge University polo team, Bilimoria noticed that the polo sticks made in India were different and of better quality than those made in Britain.

At the time, polo sticks made in Argentina were very popular but following the Falklands War, imports of Argentinian products into Britain had been banned and there was little competition to British manufacturers.

Bilimoria began to import polo sticks from India to fill in the gap, selling these successfully and profitably to Harrods and Lillywhites.

He also experimented with importing fashion goods, fabrics, and other products from India, but unlike the polo sticks these were not very successful ventures.

In 1989, along with his friend Arjun Reddy, Bilimoria founded Cobra Beer in a flat in Fulham.

The idea for the beer had come up while he was a student at Cambridge, where he 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.

He came up with a concept for a beer that had 'the refreshing qualities of a lager' but the 'smoothness and drinkability of an ale' to accompany food – in particular, Indian food and curry.

In 1989, after concluding his import-export ventures, Bilimoria and Arjun Reddy started Cobra Beer.

At the time Bilimoria 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.

A brewer in Bangalore, India, Subroto Cariapa, and the owner of Mysore Breweries, a Mr Balan, liked the idea of the beer and helped create Cobra.

From India, then, it was imported to Britain.

In a battered old Citroen 2CV, Bilimoria himself began distributing 15 cases of beer at a time across London and, slowly, outside it.

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.

In 1990, while serving at that post, F. N. Bilimoria was deputed by the Government of India to Sri Lanka to review the work of the Indian Peace Keeping Force, which had been deployed in that country during the Sri Lankan Civil War under the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord.

It was on his recommendation that the force was recalled in 1990, ending India's military engagement with the LTTE.

Karan Bilimoria's mother, Yasmin Bilimoria (née Italia), was the daughter of Jamshed D. Italia, a Squadron Leader in the Royal Indian Air Force.

The task was made all the more challenging because by 1990 the country was also in an economic recession.

Cobra took off in these circumstances by creating a niche for itself in the market.

Indian curry was becoming increasingly popular in the country at the time and so Cobra Beer was marketed and sold as the perfect drink to go with it.