Surinder Mohan (Suri) Sehgal is an Indian-American philanthropist with a long career as a crop scientist, seedsman, entrepreneur, and leading global hybrid seed industry expert. His research and professional successes in the areas of plant breeding and genetics, ag biotechnology, intellectual property, business management, and seed industry development were carried out in executive capacities in several companies in the United States, Belgium, and Germany. After the divestment of a group of four seed companies that Sehgal founded and ran with his wife, Edda Sehgal, the couple created two nonprofit organizations to promote rural development in Suri's country of origin: Sehgal (Family) Foundation in 1998 in the US, and S M Sehgal Foundation in India. The foundation focuses on water security, food security, and social justice, particularly empowerment. A proponent of corporate social responsibility and environmental sustainability, Sehgal has also provided support individually and through the foundations for projects related to agriculture research, the preservation of biodiversity and the conservation of natural resources.
Early life and education Suri Sehgal was born on 16 May 1934 in the town of Guliana in the Punjab Province of British India (now in Punjab, Pakistan) into an inter-caste Punjabi family. He was the second son, and one of eight children, of a Hindu father, Faqirchand “Shahji” Sehgal, and a Sikh mother, Shushil Kaur Sehgal. Shahji Sehgal was an associate of Mahatma Gandhi in the Indian National Congress, and the family home was a center for community organizing for India's independence from British rule. Suri was thirteen when independence brought about the Partition of India in August 1947. The Sehgal family home, in the region of Punjab that became part of Pakistan, was along the route of the mass migration of people who were displaced amidst the violence that followed Partition—Hindus and Sikhs to India and Muslims from India to Pakistan. Suri ended up homeless for a time on the streets of Delhi and was a witness to horrific violence and bloodshed before being reunited with his family in a refugee camp in Amritsar, India. Suri achieved a bachelor of science with honors and a master of science with honors in botany at Punjab University, where he received silver medals, merit certificates, and scholarships for academic achievement in 1955 and 1957. He came to the United States in 1959 to study plant genetics and work with Paul C. Mangelsdorf at Harvard University. He received the Anna C. Ames Memorial Scholarship in 1961. He attained his Ph.D. in plant genetics from Harvard in 1963. He later (1982) completed the Harvard International Senior Management Program in Mont-Pelerin, Switzerland.
Professional achievements Suri Sehgal's professional career began in 1963 at a (then) regional seed company in Des Moines, Iowa, founded by plant breeder and future vice president of the United States, Henry A. Wallace, called Pioneer Hi-Bred Corn Company (named Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc., in 1970, and Dupont Pioneer in 2012). Sehgal's tenure at Pioneer lasted 24 years. He was mentored and befriended by Pioneer executive Bill Brown (William L. Brown).
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