Lopa Patel

Lopa Patel, MBE, is a digital entrepreneur.^[1] Her parents were shopkeepers who arrived in Britain as refugees from Kenya in the 1970s. After graduating BSc from UMIST in 1986 and pursuing a graduate traineeship at ICI, Patel took over a printing business which she developed into the database management and direct marketing company DMS Direct.^[2] She went on to found Redhotcurry.com (a recipe-sharing site that developed into a South Asian lifestyle portal) and the online shopping site TheRedhotshop.com. She is also the founder and CEO of Diversity UK, a think tank that studies and promotes diversity in Britain. In 2009 she was appointed to the board of Becta (British Educational Communications and Technology Agency).^[3] In 2014 she set up the online news and lifestyle publisher New Asian Post.^[4]

Patel was one of eight media experts appointed to a panel to advise on a review of the BBC Charter in 2015.^[5]