Karan Bilimoria is the Founder and Chairman of Cobra Beer. He is also Vice Chairman of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry's Asian Business Association and a member of various charities. He made it onto the Fast Track 2000 listing and is featured in both the Asian Times and Eastern Eye listings of successful businesses. He was chosen as a cross-bench life peer in 2006, becoming the first-ever Parsi in the House of Lords.

Karan started his career at Ernst & Young, where he spent four years working in audit, tax, training and accounting. In 1989 he founded Cobra Beer, realising his ambition to develop a premium lager to complement Indian cuisine. Following on from this he then extended into other markets with the launch of General Bilimoria Wines in 1999, and by founding Tandoori Magazine. In 2005, he became, and still is, Chancellor of Thames Valley University - the UK's youngest university chancellor at the time. He published a book in 2007 called 'Bottled for Business: The Remarkable Success Story of Cobra Beer'.