Suhail Rehman

The SUR Foundation has been born from something deeply personal to me: a lifelong sense of gratitude, responsibility, faith and service.

Long before SUR Group, my life was shaped by community work. In my youth, I helped establish the Youth Counselling Service Agency, supporting young people through counselling, training and employment opportunities. I was also involved in the development and management of Glasgow’s first multicultural elderly care centre, the Ethnic Minorities Law Centre and served as board member on a number of community groups. Over the years, I have represented young people, advocated for their needs and lobbied for their advancement on committees at both local and national government level.

Alongside this, I have spent over 30 years building businesses — from helping grow Picsel into a world-leading technology company, to more recently scaling franchise businesses with the SUR Group which employs over 600 people throughout Scotland. That journey has taught me how to build organisations, create opportunity, lead through challenge and turn vision into practical, sustainable impact.

The SUR Foundation brings these two parts of my life together: community service and business experience.

I have always believed that whatever success we are given is not ours alone. It is a trust. It comes with an obligation to use it well, to serve others and to leave something behind that continues to do good long after we are gone.

My hope is that the Foundation becomes a source of help, dignity and hope for people and communities facing hardship. Whether through poverty alleviation, education, community support or disaster relief, our giving will be practical, thoughtful and rooted in compassion.

Above all, I hope the SUR Foundation becomes a waqf (an Islamic charitable endowment created to provide ongoing benefit for others) — a lasting platform for giving that outlives us, benefits future generations and supports meaningful projects for many years to come.

For me, this is not simply about charity. It is about purpose. It is about using what we have been blessed with to serve others, and building something that carries that intention forward.