E-Malt.com News article: UK: Cobra beer entrepreneur accepts accounting achievement award from Prince Charles

Founder and Chief Executive of Cobra Beer and the UK's youngest university chancellor, Karan Bilimoria accepted the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales' (ICAEW) prestigious Outstanding Achievement award for 2005 recently. The award was presented at the Institute's Annual Dinner in London by guest of honour HRH Prince Charles in acknowledgement of Mr Bilimoria's exceptional entrepreneurship and contribution to charity.

President of the ICAEW, Paul Druckman, said: "Karan Bilimoria is a great example of a chartered accountant using the skills he has acquired to good effect in the modern, global business world. Not only has he built up a successful global company but he also devotes a huge amount of his time and energy to helping a number of charities with their poverty reduction and education work in the developing world. His contribution to business and society has been impressive, and I am particularly pleased that he is the winner of the Outstanding Achievement award in the Institute's 125th year."

Mr Bilimoria trained as a chartered accountant with Ernst & Young and became a member of the Institute in 1986. Using the wide range of business skills he learnt as a chartered accountant, he founded Cobra Beer in 1990 at the young age of 27. Fifteen years later, Cobra Beer is stocked in over 6,000 restaurants, more than 5,000 outlets of most major supermarkets and off licence chains and available to nearly 6,000 bars, pubs and clubs in the UK. The brand currently has a turnover of £65 million at retail value and has been exported to over 35 countries worldwide. In addition to the successful lager business, Karan Bilimoria has also diversified into wine with the launch of General Bilimoria wine, aimed at matching spicy food. The range has also been a huge success.

Accepting the award, Karan Bilimoria, said: "I am delighted to receive this award from the ICAEW, such a prestigious organisation and one that I am proud to be a Fellow of. It is a great honour and I am deeply humbled. I have been fortunate to witness the flourishing of entrepreneurship and enterprise in the UK since I started my training as a chartered accountant in the early 80s. What I have also found particularly rewarding is that more and more in Britain we are demonstrating that it is not just important to be the best in the world but the best for the world and so many businesses are putting back into and engaging with the community."

As well as being a member of a number of business and enterprise boards, Karan supports several charities. These include the Thare Mache Starfish Initiative, an organisation aimed at reducing prostitution and modern day slavery in the developing world; Rethink severe mental illness; The Memorial Gates Trust and the Shrimati Pushpa Wati Loomba Memorial Trust for the education of children of poor widows in India.

Chairman of the Selection Committee, Graham Ward, added: "Karan Bilimoria impressed the Committee greatly with his combination of charity work and using his business and accounting skills to help others, for example through the number of SME and Entrepreneur panels with which he is involved. Karan proves that there are no limits to what a chartered accountant can achieve, not only in business but for the community as well."

Karan's activities include being a member of the UK Government's National Employment Panel (NEP) and chairman of its SME Board, the National Champion of the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship (NCGE), one of the first two Visiting Entrepreneurs at Cambridge University, and most recently, being appointed the UK's youngest university Chancellor, as Chancellor of Thames Valley University.

Recent winners of the award include Professor Geoffrey Whittington, for his contribution to accounting academia and the development of accounting standards and public life, and Hugh Collum, for his leadership of The Hundred Group of Finance Directors.


04 June, 2005