Top 0 Asian Stars in UK Tech - JOOMAG version Top 100 Asian Stars in UK Tech 2015 | Page 16

Top 100 Asian Stars in UK Tech 2015

Samir Desai
Co-founder & CEO - Funding Circle
Samir Desai is Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer at Funding Circle, the global leading
marketplace where investors directly lend to small businesses in the UK and US. Since mid 2010
Funding Circle has lent over $800m to over 6,000 businesses globally. Investors include over
30,000 individuals, institutional investors, local councils, universities and the UK Government
backed British Business Bank.
Before founding Funding Circle, Samir was an Executive at Olivant, a private equity investor
in financial services businesses in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Prior to this, he was a
management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group advising a number of major UK and
global banks and insurers on strategy, new product initiatives, and operational efficiency.
Samir gained a 1st in Economics and Management from the University of Oxford.

Rajeeb Dey
Founder & CEO - Enternships.com
Rajeeb Dey is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Enternships.com, a portal that connects
students and graduates to work placements in startups and SMEs, and develops innovative
corporate talent programmes for clients such as Telefonica, Santander and Havas for which he
was named the “02 X Young Entrepreneur of the Year” in 2009 and the youngest recipient of
the Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion in 2013.
Rajeeb is also the Co-Founder of StartUp Britain, a national entrepreneurship campaign
supported by the government; it was launched by Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David
Cameron in March 2011. Heis a Trustee of UnLtd, the Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs, and
was recognized as one of the 1,000 Most Influential People in London by The Evening Standard.
He graduated with First Class Honours in Economics and Management from the University of
Oxford in 2008 and was appointed as the world’s youngest Young Global Leader (at 26) by the
World Economic Forum in 2012.

Dinesh Dhamija
Founder & Chairman - Copper Beech
Dinesh Dhamija is one of the original UK tech entrepreneurs having founded one of Europe’s
most successful internet travel agencies, ebookers.com. After listing the company on the
Nasdaq, sales at ebookers.com went from $23 million in 1999 to $1 billion in 2004. He sold
Ebookers in 2005 for $471m from an initial investment of $5million in 1999. Dinesh is now the
Founder & Chairman of the Copper Beech Group, a company which manages investments in
sustainable education, ecotourism and real estate - currently, he directs sustainable investment
projects in India and Romania.
Born in Australia, the son of an Indian Diplomat, Dinesh completed an MA in law at Fitzwilliam
College, Cambridge University in 1974 after which he worked for various companies including
IBM. In 2006 Dinesh graduated from the President’s Programme in Leadership at Harvard
Business School. He is a patron and advisory board member of the entrepreneurs’ organization,
TiE UK, the Governor of the Rainbow Foundation in the UK, an active member of the World
Presidents Organisation (WPO) and the Chief Executives Organisation (CEO).

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