13 Questions: Gautam Lewis

Gautam Lewis was born in Kolkata, India, in 1977. At 3 years old, having contracted polio, he was abandoned to Mother Teresa’s orphanage where, aged 7 , he was adopted by a young British volunteer called Dr. Patricia Lewis and taken to live in the UK. Privately educated in the same schools as Prince Charles and Lily Allen, and with a degree from Southampton University, Gautam went on to have a very successful and colourful career in the music industry, managing The Libertines’ among others. But he became disillusioned with his work and decided to try something completely different.

Gautam uses his music management experience to run an events company, which raises the profiles of charities through concerts, and he has also set up Freedom in the Air, a unique flying school for disabled people in the UK, which aims to inspire and empower through aviation. Gautam works as an ambassador for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative too, and it was as part of this role that he made Passport from Polio with the Al Jazeera TV network, which charts his return to Kolkata to promote the immunisation of babies against polio. We found out more when we asked Gautam our 13 Questions.