Sufyan Ismail is an award-winning serial entrepreneur and philanthropist and was recently ranked amongst the 500 most influential Muslims in the world. He graduated from the University of Manchester and then started his career training with Deloitte. Sufyan has built numerous businesses over the years specialising in financial services, private equity and real estate. His businesses have won numerous awards including ‘UK’s fastest growing company', NW entrepreneur of the year and have been listed in the Sunday Times Top 100 Fast Track corporate listings. His businesses have donated over £5m towards alleviating poverty in developing countries, supporting orphans and providing emergency medical relief in disaster zones. Sufyan has also authored various briefing papers and part-authored a university textbook on Islamic finance.

In 2014, Sufyan formally retired from full-time business activity to focus on philanthropic adventures with a key focus on tackling Islamophobia. To this end he was the founder of MEND which specialises in tackling Islamophobia via a dual approach of advocacy in Westminster and media engagement as well as improving media and political literacy of grass roots British Muslims across the UK.