Born in Australia as the son of an Indian diplomat, we travelled widely and so I grew up in India, Mauritius, Afghanistan, Czechoslovakia and the Netherlands, before moving to the UK in the 1960s. I read Law at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge and am now one of the college’s Fellow Benefactors.
I have been an entrepreneur most of my life and founded the first fully internet travel company in Europe, ebookers.com in 1999. Sales topped $1 billion in just five years, with 2,000 employees in 12 countries.
After selling the company I have devoted my time to politics, charity work and a new business in green energy. I am a former Lib Dem MEP for London and have spent a decade in the NGO and charity world, creating charitable foundations to provide education and healthcare to underserved communities in India and the UK. I have been a trustee of several charities including the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, Scope and LEPRA – fighting the curable disease of leprosy.
I wrote my autobiography – Book It! – during Covid, describing how I became a successful entrepreneur and my second book, The Indian Century, should be out soon. I live in Surrey with my wife, Tani, close to our two sons and granddaughter.
(Dinesh joined the Club in 2018 and became a Director in 2023)
