Rami Ranger: Success against the odds

Imagine you had £2 in your pocket. What would you do with it? Spend it on a lottery ticket? Well not business entrepreneur Dr Rami Ranger MBE. Equipped with only £2 and an office which was actually a shed, Ranger has become one of the UK’s outstanding business leaders, turning his £2 into a multi million pound global empire.

Ranger was born into humble beginnings, starting life in a refugee camp. He was born two months after the assassination of his illustrious father, Shaheed Nanak Singh, a social justice stalwart, who vehemently fought against the breakup of India on the basis of religion. Undeterred by his situation, and inspired by the principled teaching and support of his mother, Ranger is now regarded as one of the UK’s leading business leaders.

Ranger’s company, Sun Mark Ltd, exports well known British supermarket products such as Cadburys, Twinings and Heinz to over 100 countries. Last month Sun Mark Ltd, received the Queens Award for Enterprise in International Trade for an unprecedented fourth consecutive year.

The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise is given to outstanding UK businesses and is “The proof that your business is the best". Winning the award for the fourth consecutive time is an extraordinary achievement and means that Sun Mark Ltd has a unique place in British business history and has broken all records.

This phenomenal business successes would change people, but business prowess is not Ranger’s sole focus and he remains grounded and a community champion. He wears a number of hats as he is passionate about empowering others through business and politics.

As one of the founder members of the British Asian Conservative Link, Ranger was determined to make Asians more publicly and politically spirited and to encourage them to take part in the decision making process in Britain. The BACL are proud of their record and the Conservative Party, which previously had no Asian representation in Parliament, now has five MPs of Asian origin, which can in part be attributed to the work of the BACL.

Ranger is also a patron of the Princes Trust and spends his time mentoring young people so that they too can realise their ambitions and become upstanding citizens able to contribute positively to their families and country.

He tells them that,

they do not need a rich family or elite education to be successful in life. Self-respect, work ethics and empathy for others will help them reap rewards.

Following the London bomings in 2005, Ranger established the Pakistan, India & UK Friendship Forum in a conscious effort to build bridges and a sense of cohesion between communities, particularly the Muslim community which were being targeted and isolated. Moreover, the Forum has provided a forum for even bigger achievements, such as the joint Independence day celebrations of India and Pakistan in London. Its occurrence was historical, the first time ever anywhere in the world, and proved to be an instant success as thousands of Pakistanis and Indians celebrate what unites them in Britain.

Ranger is truly inspirational. He says that he is “grateful to the British sense of tolerance and fair play where an ordinary immigrant like him can realise his ambitions and become an asset for his family and adopted country”.

Amidst the current economic turmoil, Ranger’s business continues not only to excel, but to break its own records. His strength as a business leader is coupled with his desire to empower others, and it is clear that his adopted country have inherited a very welcomed addition to the family.

Francine Fernandes

Picture: Dr Rami Ranger pictured with OBV’s Francine Fernandes at the celebration of being awarded the third Queen’s Awards for Enterprise in 2011.