Rishi Raja

Interests

Love playing and watching sports; cricket, snooker, football, squash, badminton.. I can go on and on! Music is another of my passions – singing and playing a variety of instruments in an Indian band.

Favourite Music

Mixture of everything; R&B to salsa to Indian to Classical (random I know, but Zakir Hussein [Tabla] and Shivkumar Sharma [Santoor] are amazing) to Michael Jackson to Country and Norah Jones. Musiq Soulchild, Brian Mcknight, Rhian Benson are also some of my favourite artists. Plus Fusion from the likes of Nitin Sawhney and Talvin Singh.

Favourite TV Shows

24, CSI, Entourage, Sleeper Cell, Big Bang Theory, Dragon’s Den, Goodness Gracious Me, Friends, My Wife & Kids

Favourite Movies

Fight Club, Donnie Darko, Saw, City of God, Devil’s Advocate, Se7en, Dil Chaata Hai, Veerzaara, Saajan and obviously…Kuch Kuch Hota Hai!

Favourite Books

The Celestine Prophecy – an amazing book, may change your life!

Favourite Quotes

Literally, seriously.

A little bit about my background

I got a first class honours from UCL in mathematics (yep, I know, nothing to do with Marketing), but then went on to join Suncrest Drinks, where I went through the ranks and was head of sales & marketing for nearly 9 years. Now a senior sales & marketing consultant to blue-chip manufacturers in the FMCG industry.

Why One Cause?

In terms of charity work, have helped and organised a number of charitable events to raise money for a variety of different causes. One good example would be The “Reflect Yourself” show in September 2006 which included a diversity of acts, including Stomp and Raghav. The event pulled in a crowd of around 1000 people. I was one of the main organisers of the show and we managed to raise near £18,000 for Save the Children and Asian Foundation for Help.

In this show, I was fortunate enough to have had the help of our CEO, Rajen and our Chairman, Kishan. We had also worked together previously on the Nirvana show, which took place a year earlier which raised over £9,000.

For me, the great thing about One Cause, is that I am working together with people who all share the same vision and goal, which is to help people in developing countries by building stronger communities through education. By starting One Cause, we have more control on how the money is spent and can ensure we work towards achieving our goals.