Asian Power Couples
Lord G K & Lady Mohini Noon
Lord Gulam Kaderbhoy (G K) Noon MBE is a British businessman originally from Mumbai, India.
He founded Noon Products, which he established in September 1987, manufacturing chilled
and frozen ready meals, predominantly for UK supermarkets giving rise to the affectionate
title for him as the “Curry King of Britain.” In 2005 Noon Products was taken over by Irish food
conglomerate Kerry Group. Lord Noon was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire
(MBE) in 1996 and was later made a Knight Bachelor on the 2002 Birthday Honours list. In
January 2011, he was created a life peer as Baron Noon. He is currently the chancellor of the
University of East London.
Lord Gulam & Lady Mohini Noon
Lady Mohini Kent Noon is a writer, playwright, journalist and a film-maker. She has authored
two books; one of them Chief Longhooknose and Trader Jim is on American Indians. Her play,
Rumi:Unveil the Sun, on the 13th Century Persian Muslim poet, theologian and Sufi mystic, coauthored with her mother Amrit Kent, has been widely acclaimed. She is also Chairperson of
The Lily Foundation which works for the freedom women and children by preventing trafficking.
Dev Patel & Freida Pinto
Dev Patel is a British Indian actor, best known for playing Jamal Malik in Danny Boyle’s Slumdog
Millionaire (2008), for which he won a number of awards. Patel is also known for his role as
Anwar Kharral, a British Pakistani Muslim teenager in Skins; as Sonny Kapoor in The Best Exotic
Marigold Hotel; and as Neal Sampat in Aaron Sorkin’s HBO show The Newsroom. He has been
dating his Slumdog Millionaire co-star Freida Pinto since 2009.
Dev Patel & Freida Pinto
Freida Pinto is an Indian actress and model. Hailing from a Mangalorean Catholic family, she
worked as a model and television presenter, and acted in plays while attending college. She
rose to prominence playing the role of Latika in the 2008 British Indian drama film Slumdog
Millionaire, a film that marked her debut. Since then she has starred in a number of BritishIndian and Indian-American productions, notably You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, Rise of the
Planet of the Apes, Immortals and Michael Winterbottom’s Trishna, where she played the titular
character. In April 2013, Pinto collaborated with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and World
Bank President Jim Yong Kim for the Call to Action – Girl Rising campaign.
Kishore Patel & Fiona Cairns
Cake designer Fiona Cairns based in Fleckney, Leicestershire was chosen in February 2011 to
create the cake for the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton that took place on
29 April 2011 at Westminster Abbey in London. Little was known about Cairns other than the
fact her company was supplying beautiful cakes to Harrods. Fiona Cairns Ltd was founded in
1986 and today employs 100 people in Leicestershire. The company has grown 32% a year since
2004 and posted sales of £5 million in 2012. Fiona Cairns, who studied graphic design with a
desire to pursue a career as an illustrator, was encouraged to turn a hobby into a business by
her husband Kishore Patel.
Kishore Patel joined the company full-time as Managing Director in 2001. An alumnus of
Scindia School, Gwalior, Patel arrived in Britain in 1964 to attend boarding school. He dropped
out of a business degree at Enfield Polytechnic to work for the family’s knitwear business. He
and Fiona married in 1982 and moved to Market Harborough in 1983. While Kishore manages
the business end of the partnership, Fiona has been starring in her own TV series ‘Home of
Fabulous Cakes’ on ITV1.
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