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Mumbai : HelpYourNGO (HYNGO), powered by Quantum Mutual Fund, brought a 2-day Mega webinar titled ‘Making India Future Ready – The Next 20 years’ on Sept 27 & 28, 2021. This year marked 30 years since India’s landmark economic reforms in 1991. The event saw industry stalwarts, including Ronnie Screwvala, T V Mohandas Pai, Zia Mody, Mirai Chatterjee, Amarjeet Singh & Eloy Lindeijer.

Day 1 session kick-started with Ronnie Screwvala, who dons the hat of an entrepreneur, and an educationist

When asked about what makes a successful entrepreneur, Ronnie mentioned, “I think 1) just the absolute ability to take risks, 2) handling failure is what will help you. For me, my success ratio is 2 out of 10. There are 8 times you have failed for the 2 times you have succeeded. But whenever I have failed, it’s a 1x, but the two times that you succeed have to be 20X. But you can’t do a 20 X success unless you have had those 8 failures because you are not taking enough risk of pushing the envelope and thinking nonlinearly.”

When asked when an entrepreneur should start worrying about ESG, he said, “It has to be day 0. When you start an organization, when you think of an idea, one of the first things you are thinking about is the culture. That’s going to propel you and outlast so many other things that you do in an organization. It is about a little bit of caring and sensitivity, and most importantly, empathy. Empathy will get your best team members, see you through your failures, and it will build loyalty in a team.”

Towards the end of the webinar, Ronnie Screwvala unveiled the hynGO band, the latest initiative by HelpYourNGO to encourage individuals to support credible & vetted NGOs working towards UN SDGs. One can purchase the hynGO band packaged in a multi-purpose khadi pouch for Rs.200/- to support this effort. Proceeds from the hynGO band will be donated to charities vetted by HelpYourNGO’s Research Analysts.

The second session saw India’s two changemakers Zia Mody & Mirai Chatterjee, inspiring and guiding the ‘woman of today’. When asked about where are the women 30 years ago from now, Zia said,” There is a very long way for women to go in this country. I personally believe that upliftment of women will only come with education and looking after the girl child’s health. This can be through various initiatives of the Government. I believe that the incremental steps, however small, are going to have a profound impact.”

When asked what was holding the progress of Women Mirai opined, “I think the major issue is that we have an amazing constitution, but the implementation at the grassroots level is mixed at best. So, we have to organize women, build solidarity, build their collectives so that we can get a hold of those policies and make sure they reach the poorest, the most vulnerable of women and girls.”

Day 2 of the mega event saw Padma Shri Awardee and former CFO and Board Member of Tech giant Infosys, T V Mohandas Pai. When asked about how India needs to gear for ESG, Pai said, “We cannot adopt western models. For example, remember the midday meal scheme that we ran for Akshaya Patra Foundation has done more to bring children back to school than anybody could do at a low cost. We need to create new models that can empower Indians.”

The second half saw Executive Director of SEBI Amarjeet Singh who shared the changes he has witnessed at the market regulator SEBI over the last 30 years. He opined, “The market cap to GDP ratio is the criteria we used to see the development of the markets and was only about 50% during the 1990s. It has climbed to more than 80% during the last five years and 104% in 2021. There were only 4-5 years FPIs were negative in terms of inflows. If you look at the AUM of mutual funds, it has increased from 12 trillion rupees in 2016 to now around 31 trillion at the end of the year FY 2021,” he said.

He also talked about the BRSR, which would be applicable on a mandatory basis in 2022 and is one step ahead of the business responsibility report applicable to the top 1000 companies. But in this, BRSR is a quantum leap into the area of sustainability disclosures we have followed a climate-plus approach considering our ground realities. I believe the framework has about 500 data points.”

When asked about the impact of economic reforms on pension providerslike PGGM Eloy said, “If you look at long-term investors like PGGM, they have taken an increasing allocation to emerging capital markets under the recognition that clearly indicates that, future growth and future returns will be increasingly coming from those emerging nations and emerging capital markets. So initially, the focus was on plumbing & taxation and getting to know how to enter the market. Now we have all the reforms and the enormous growth in the Indian economy, many of the investors benefited enormously. Increasingly, the search is for reliable local partners that you can build a long-term relationship with”, Eloy said.

“The big change going forwards is going towards more value-based investing. I think it started with ethical questions on the environment, labour practices, human rights, and these have factored in increasingly into the screening practices of public markets. Investors are coming together and trying to find metrics and benchmarks that measure non-financial impact,” Eloy added.

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