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.

[1][2] His research and professional successes in the areas of plant breeding[3] and genetics, ag biotechnology, intellectual property, business management, and seed industry development[4] were carried out in executive capacities in several companies in the United States, Belgium, and Germany.

[8] 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,[9][10] the preservation of biodiversity[11][12] and the conservation of natural resources.

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.

[17] 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.

[19] Suri Sehgal met Edda Gudrun Jeglinsky (born December 25, 1941, in Breslau, Silesia) a few weeks after she first came to the United States from Germany in 1962 to live as an au pair in the home of Henry Kissinger, a professor at Harvard at the time.

The creation of their foundations and the Sehgals’ ongoing commitment to philanthropy was rooted in the violence and loss they experienced during their childhoods as refugees fleeing from their countries of origin.

S M Sehgal Foundation's mission is to strengthen community-led development initiatives to achieve positive social, economic, and environmental Agri-Business in rural India.