Does Business Have A Voice? We speak to the new president of the CBI – Lord Karan Bilimoria CBE DL

1. What is the CBI?
The UK’s most effective and influential business organisation. The CBI speaks on behalf of 190,000 businesses. Together they employ nearly 7 million people, about one-third of the private sector-employed workforce.
 
2. How does being a leader entrepreneur assist in your position as head of the CBI and how important is diversity to you?
“As CBI President, I have 4 priorities for my term. Each of them vital in their own way during normal times, let alone as we look to recover from a global pandemic.
 
Firstly, the importance of entrepreneurship and advocating for the importance of SMEs.
Having built Cobra Beer from scratch, I know first-hand the powerful role that entrepreneurs, innovators, and SMEs can play in the economy.
From the outside, the CBI is often labelled as ‘big business’. We are incredibly proud to have most of the UK’s leading blue-chip companies in our membership, but the vast majority of those we speak for are actually SMEs; independent ret...