Mohammed Ali has lived in Bradford since 1969. He studied at Huddersfield and Bradford Universities. For ten years he worked in private, public and the voluntary sectors in UK and abroad before setting up QED Foundation in 1990, a national charity that supports the social and economic integration of ethnic minority communities. QED runs ESOL and employability skills training to find people jobs and provides consultancy support to public and private sectors in recruiting an ethnically diverse workforce. He has held numerous pubic and voluntary sector appointments at local, national and European levels. For his work with communities in 1997, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by University of Bradford and OBE in 2001.