KMFoundation
About us
A family foundation built on four decades of building things that last.
Who we are
The KM Foundation is the charitable foundation of Kumar Muthalagappan OBE FCA and his three children. We are registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation, recognised by HMRC for Gift Aid, and no trustee receives remuneration of any kind. 85% of every donation goes directly to the work, with minimal overheads and no trustee remuneration.
We are a family charity with a professional spine: founded by a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, led by medical doctors and scientists, and governed with the same discipline we have applied across decades in business.
Chairman and Trustee
Kumar Muthalagappan OBE FCA
Kumar was born into a Chettiar community in Virachilai, southern India — a community with centuries of tradition in philanthropy, education and healthcare. He was raised in Malaysia, arrived in England in 1978, and read Accounting and Financial Analysis at the University of Warwick before qualifying as a Chartered Accountant and Fellow of the ICAEW (FCA) through KPMG’s Birmingham office, where he spent 14 years across Audit, Taxation, Corporate Finance and Bid Defence.
He then built MeDiNova Research from a single North London clinical research unit to 106 active sites across eight countries — with turnover rising from £500,000 to £40 million — before ICON plc (NASDAQ: ICLR), the world’s largest contract research organisation, acquired a majority shareholding in May 2019. He subsequently led Oncacare Research, a specialist oncology clinical research company, also acquired by ICON plc in 2023.
Alongside his commercial career, Kumar served at board level across nine national and regional organisations, including the Olympic Delivery Authority for the 2012 London Games, Visit Britain, Alexandra Palace, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the University of Warwick, Belgrade Theatre Coventry, and Coventry City of Culture Trust 2021. He was awarded an OBE in the 2009 New Year Honours for services to Tourism and Hospitality.
He is currently a Strategic Advisor to Vitruvian Partners (Healthcare & Life Sciences) and a member of the CRIO Catalyst Council.
Healthcare Lead
Dr Seetha Sweetnam
Education Lead
Dr Deva Muthalagappan
Projects
Dharma Muthalagappan
Natural Sciences, St John’s College, Cambridge (2025). Currently reading for a Master’s in Biochemistry at Cambridge. Associate Member of the Royal School of Music. Accomplished pianist and trumpeter.
Independent Trustee
Our Independent Trustee is an experienced Tax Accountant advising on income and gains tax, IHT, trusts, pensions and charities.
Why It Matters That We Are a Family
We are not a committee. We are a family who have chosen to put our time, professional expertise and resources directly into causes we believe in. Faster decisions. Lower overheads. A direct line between every pound donated and the work on the ground.
Writing a cheque is easy. Structuring that cheque to produce measurable outcomes is harder. In business, we are relentless about return on investment. In philanthropy, we should not be any different.
Kumar Muthalagappan OBE
