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]

Awards

Patel won an Asian Woman of the Year Award in 2005 for her work as a new media entrepreneur, an achievement showcased in a Department of Work and Pensions report to Parliament on equality of opportunity.[6] In 2009 she was awarded an MBE for "services to the creative industries".[7] In 2015 she became the first Asian woman to receive the Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion.[8] She was also a finalist for Businesswoman of the Year in the English Asian Business Awards.[9]

In 2017 she was awarded an honorary doctorate by The Open University "for her exceptional contribution to diversity in the STEM sector".[10]

References

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