India’s First 10 CSR Thought Leaders Felicitated at Coffee for Cause

For the first time in India, 10 CSR Thought Leaders from India’s corporate houses and institutions were felicitated at ‘Coffee For Cause: Conversations around CSR’, which took place on 3 May 2014 at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi.

The leaders were felicitated for their distinguished service in the responsibility and sustainability domain. The felicitations were done by Mr BS Bonal, member secretary, Central Zoo Authority (CZA), Ministry of Environment & Forests.

While there are many award platforms for corporate groups, there has been none to recognize efforts of individuals who have dedicated their careers to the CSR domain. Keeping this in view, CauseBecause, a social enterprise focused on sustainability, conceptualized and organized Coffee For Cause.

Mrs Rajashree Birla, chairperson of The Aditya Birla Centre for Community Initiatives and Rural Development at Aditya Birla Management, congratulated the 10 Thought Leaders and appreciated the efforts of Team CauseBecause in seeing this unique event through. Mrs Birla is also director on the Board of all the major Aditya Birla Group of Companies including Grasim, Hindalco, Aditya Birla Nuvo and UltraTech Cement, and heads of CSR from all these companies attended Coffee For Cause.

The felicitated Thought Leaders included:

Dr Pragnya Ram, group executive president, corporate communication and CSR, Aditya Birla Group (Mr Tej Bahadur Mathur, GM – CSR at Hindalco, receiving the memento on her behalf)

Lt Gen. Rajender Singh, CEO, DLF Foundation

Brigadier Rajiv Williams, corporate head, CSR,
Jindal Stainless Limited

Ms Vikas Goswami, group head – community relations,
Vedanta Resources Plc

Colonel Prakash Tewari, head CSR, Jindal Steel and Power Limited

Ms Madhu Singh Sirohi, country head, Vodafone
Foundation

Ms Sushama OZA, CEO, Adani Foundation

Prof. Girish Agrawal, Coordinator, Center for Social Entrepreneurship and Enterprises, faculty Group member, Center for RI & CSR, IRMA

Mr Rishi Pathania,  head CSR, UPL Ltd

The event also witnessed leaders from over 40 NGOs presenting on stage their social programmes to these thought leaders. The presentations by the NGOs were made in a unique format wherein they had three minutes each to talk about their project/idea, its scalability prospects as well as their expectations from the corporate groups.

Interestingly, many programmes by NGOs were appreciated by the corporate leaders and will be taken forward for the second level of talks.