About the founders
Rishi Khosla
Rishi Khosla is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and investor, and the CEO and co-founder of a leading financial technology company, OakNorth.
He is deeply invested in fostering an entrepreneurial spirit and creating environments for aspiring entrepreneurs, supporting several initiatives in the educational space, working with schools and academies to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit in the next generation.
He believes in fostering potential at an early level which is why one of the focuses of he and his wife’s foundation, The Rishi and Milan Khosla Foundation, is to support and boost early childhood development, which is key to enabling and nurturing the agency, creativity, and curiosity that unleashes potential.
The Foundation is also committed to supporting diversity in the entrepreneurial space through driving female empowerment in underprivileged communities.
Rishi Khosla was awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) from Her Majesty The Queen in 2019 for services to business.
Milan Khosla
Milan Khosla qualified as a solicitor in the 1990’s and spent over a decade with Kennedy’s Law firm and the legal department of Goldman Sachs.
As well as bringing up four children, she leads OakNorth’s CSR programme, which in addition to charitable work in India, supports a number of charities and initiatives focused on entrepreneurship, mentorship and STEAM education. For example, she was part of the development team for OakNorth’s ‘Mentorpreneurship’ programme, launched in 2021 with the London School of Economics, which us designed to equip the next generation with the skills, confidence, and entrepreneurial mindset needed to thrive in an ever-changing world. To date, almost 90 schools have engaged with the programme.
She is passionate about early childhood development, and has more than 16 years’ experience of working on initiatives to improve the welfare of children aged 0-6 years-old through various interventions such as schooling and curriculum development, nutrition, and teacher training.
Milan is a regular volunteer at her local food bank where her work on counselling has given her a deep understanding of cross-cultural, as well as mental health issues (her father had dementia) across the community.
