THE ELITE INTERVIEW
From the ashes
The business empire Lord Karan Bilimoria had carefully crafted stood on the verge of collapse. But thanks to his steely determination, uncompromising morals and a joint venture with one of the world’s biggest brewing companies, Cobra Beer is stronger than ever
WORDS: HANNAH PREVETT
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ith his crisp upper class accent, it is easy to forget Lord Karan Bilimoria wasn’t born in Britain. At first, at least. For, once the entrepreneur begins speaking about his childhood, it becomes immediately apparent how his Indian heritage and links with successful forebears have informed his entrepreneurial career at every step of the way. Born in Hyderabad, Bilimoria was the son of an army general and raised as part of the Parsi community – Indians of Persian origin whose religion is Zoroastrianism. “It’s a small but very successful community,” says Bilimoria, proudly. “Parsis have always been very successful in every field, whether it’s business, or politics or law.” Indeed, Bilimoria’s own family were leaders across multiple spheres. His father, initially commissioned to the Gurkha regiment, retired as commander-in-chief of the Central Indian army. His grandfather was one of the first Indians to be commissioned at Sandhurst, and he retired as a brigadier. Meanwhile, his mother’s father was a successful businessman in South India. Bilimoria’s maternal great-grandfather was an entrepreneur, later becoming a member of the Upper House of India, which is the equivalent of the House of Lords in the UK. “Four generations later we must be the only Indian family that’s had a member of both the houses in both countries,” he says, proudly. Being born into a high-achieving family meant Bilimoria was ambitious from a young age. “My family’s had a huge influence on me,” he says. It’s fair to say his childhood was fairly fragmented: his father’s military career meant the family regularly moved and Bilimoria junior attended seven different schools. The one constant was a family home in Hyderabad to which the family would return when they couldn’t join their father. “It was something we just accepted because my father was in the army. If he was fighting a war or was stationed on the Chinese border in the mountains, or somewhere else the family couldn’t accompany him, we would go back to Hyderabad. My mother’s family home was our base. It was a lovely big, grand old family house – wonderful to visit as a child.” Yet, more often than not, much to their delight, Bilimoria and his younger brother, would travel with their father. “We went to the most amazing, adventurous places. For example, my father commanded a
www.elitebusinessmagazine.co.uk May 2013
desert brigade when he was a brigadier. That was fantastic going from boarding schools to camping out in the desert during holidays. You know that romantic India that people dream of? I lived it.” Certainly, Bilimoria talks about his childhood with a good deal of affection. He paints an idyllic picture of camping, horse riding and playing tennis. He speaks about learning to box at the age of eight. And he was precocious in his studies too, attending university at just 16. At the age of 19, with a degree in commerce from Osmania University under his belt, he arrived in Blighty to undertake training to become a chartered accountant. As he studied, he got field experience with the firm that was to become Ernst & Young. “I used to work in the City and go out on audits,” he recalls. “One of my clients was Gerald Ronson, the entrepreneur who founded property company Heron International. That was quite the eye-opener.” Yet it wasn’t enough to persuade Bilimoria that his future lay in auditing. “I knew halfway through my accounting studies that, while it was great professional training and business training, I didn’t want to be an accountant for the rest of my life.” His favourite module when studying for his accountancy qualification had been law, so he applied to Cambridge to read it. For the budding entrepreneur, his time at the esteemed education institution wasn’t about achieving another degree, but enjoying the extracurricular activities