34. Ranjit Sondhi, Heart of Birmingham Teaching PCT

Born in India, Ranjit Sondhi has lived, studied and worked in Birmingham for more than 40 years and has a degree in physics from the University of Birmingham.

Since 1969 he has worked on a number of community action projects in inner city areas. He founded the Asian Resource Centre in Handsworth in 1976 and was made a CBE for services to community relations in 1999.

He has a distinguished record of service on public bodies, having been deputy chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, chairman of the Refugee Employment, Training and Education Forum and a member of the Ethnic Minority Advisory Committee of the Judicial Studies Board.

He also served on the Lord Chancellor's advisory committee on legal education and conduct, and on the task force on disability rights at the former Department for Education and Employment. From 1998 to 2006 he was a governor of the BBC with special responsibility for the English regions.

Mr Sondhi remains involved in local projects including services for the visually impaired, South Asian arts, black oral history and mentoring pupils at risk of school exclusion. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a member of the Lunar Society in Birmingham.

A senior lecturer at the University of Birmingham, Westhill, where he co-ordinated a new degree in race and ethnic studies, Mr Sondhi was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Central England in 2003.