Nighat Awan

Nighat, was born in Manchester but spent several years of her childhood in Pakistan, which she acknowledges as a profound influence on her personality and ethos. Managing her own garment factory from the age of 18, Nighat went on into fashion retail and the floristry business before entering the restaurant trade with her first Shere Khan restaurant on Manchester’s ‘curry mile’ in Rusholme. Shere Khan is now a thriving international business, and the brand has also gone into food services and the export business with an innovative range of curry products which are exported to Hong Kong, the US, Canada, Spain and Belgium amongst others.

Nighat is equally well known for her tireless charitable activities, which include work for Business in the Community (for whom she is one of 26 nationwide ‘ambassadors’), The Prince’s Trust, Cancer BACUP, the Pakistan Human Development Fund and Bolton Business Ventures. In summer 2004 Nighat was awarded the OBE (Order of the British Empire) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in recognition of her services to export and to charity.

Nighat has overcome serious illness in the last decade, including thyroid cancer, a motor neurone disorder which left her paralysed for a time and a heart bypass in 2003.

More recently she has been awarded the Outstanding Contribution award at Manchester’s Food and Drink festival (2004), the Business Award in the Muslim News Awards for Excellence (2005) and the Entrepreneur Award in the Asian Women of Achievement Awards (2005).

Nighat lives in Hale, Cheshire and is married with three children.