Most of us who grew up in socialist India have embraced capitalism, yet feel a strong drive to help others whether at a personal level, such as supporting the education of those who work for us or in our profession. My earliest memories are from middle school when I would sell stamps for Tuberculosis patients or donate books/clothes.
When I joined the TVS Group I got exposed to how traditional Indian business houses supported the ecosystems and the families of those who worked for the group. They supported by providing education, financial aid for marriages or healthcare, and providing jobs to family members. Through their Trusts larger socio-economic-cultural impact initiatives were taken up. It was a way of doing things.
GRE/ Axa exposed me to the global/multinational style of CSR. Example Axa had one day designated as the Global CSR day, and we would align all our year-long activities to culminate into a major event. One year we supported Aruna Chetana – a special needs school in Bangalore, which left a deep and enduring impact on me for how brave the children were and how strong and tenacious the teachers and caregivers were.
As I moved to head Thomson Reuters we adopted a tribal village to get children back into schools when they dropped out. Over 7-8 years I know several children finished school, some completed college, and one went back to be a teacher.
The ethos of Thomson Reuters was to bring about larger change – which our journalists did every day. As we became Thomson Reuters we had more support from the foundation. At that time we did numerous things – one was partnering with Janagrahaa to build awareness of citizens' rights, governance including how we could drive transparency. During the merger, more than 800 staff got involved in Habitat for Humanity including building a few women-only shelters. This helped us build our teams while contributing to the larger needs of society. The organization also won the Helen Keller award – this was not CSR but just how the company functioned.
Deutsche Bank has a strong foundation that was focused on sustainability and urban development when I joined. The teams in DBOI had adopted schools, supported villages and DBOI Bangalore partnered with the Electronic City association on several programs. We were one of the early adopters for garbage segregation and going green in our offices.
in 2014, with the CSR section being added into Company law, this became a mainstream activity. As the Regional Management COO, this was a major part of my remit. As a regulated bank, we not only had to look at social impact; we also had to put in place stringent risk & control processes from NGO identification, to monitoring where the funds came from to end-use and operational and fraud risk management.
We had to shift from small projects to doing things on a scale – which we did by defining our strategic focus, identifying partners while balancing opportunities that came from staff and clients to ensure. The public-private partnership with the Maharashtra government was very unique. Our engagements ranged from Ashoka University, Akshay’s Patra, Tata foundation programs, Jaipur Foot, numerous water programs, to partnering with the who-is-who in the field.
While this was happening I was fortunate to be a Trustee on the Nasscom Foundation. We were the only industry foundation and we had to pivot from being a niche player to building scale and partnership for our members. I chaired the Audit Committee and was active in ensuring we had a process to manage Conflict of Interest to safeguard the reputation of the organization & industry.
I was also the chair of the CSR committee in Swiss Re’s off-shored entity. They focused on nurturing a school apart from a host of activities.
My commitment over the last 25 years has been with cancer care and I have been a core committee member since 2010 at the Sri Shankara Cancer Research and Hospital. This is a story for another day.
As I write this, I realize that this has been an area of passion – I spent serious time exploring the Ashoka Foundation at Subrato Bagchi’s behest; explored the possibility of setting up a rating ‘agency’ for NGOs or blockchain.
All I know is, irrespective of what I do in the future, this area will be a significant portion of my life.
