HSBC Seminar on CSR
November 28, 2007

CSR-aware skilled human capital is becoming vital to a company's sustainability and the demand for such resource is on the rise. Realising this, the SPJIMR in association with Partners in Change and HSBC organized a CSR seminar as part of the lecture series on 'Investing in Business Leaders of Tomorrow'. The series comprised of seminars in different locations across India, the first two of which were held in Mumbai and Bangalore on Nov. 28 and Nov. 30, 2007 respectively.

Eminent practitioners from industry and academia, including a 25- student strong delegation from Netherlands, attended the seminar, held at the SPJIMR auditorium. The delegation was led by Mr. Freake, student coordinator of the university's CSR club who shared their views on CSR initiatives in Netherlands and Dubai, where they had paid visit before tour of Mumbai.

The seminar was inaugurated by Mr. Peter Brew from IBLF (International Business Leadership Forum) and Mr. Viraf Mehta, CEO, PIC. In the opening address, Dr. Sesha Iyer, director, SPJIMR talked about relevance of CSR for MBA students. Later Mr. Viraf took an informative session on the DOCC committee of evolution of CSR initiatives in India and the world. Mr. Peter Brew shared his experience of working with NGOs f r o m Latin America,China and Africa. Mrs. Malini Thadani, corporate head, HSBC gave a brief presentation on the CSR initiatives taken up by HSBC in India and abroad. This was followed by an interesting movie titled 'The Merchant Princes of Bombay ' wh i c h tracked the growth of HSBC bank from the days of David Sassoon to CSR initiatives of today. This was followed by a panel discussion on scope for inclusion of CSR in management curriculum. The panel included Mr. Saran Tamhane, Mr. D. B. Raju (Larsen & Toubro Ltd.), Ms. Hima Mehta (Colgate Palmolive) and Ms. Suvrata Gharge (Head-CSR, Mahindra & Mahindra).

Students and alumni from SPJIMR, University of Twente and AIESEC also shared their views on CSR. Such myriad insights on the same issue made the seminar a grand success.