The enigmatic leader in former CEO of Yes Bank, Rana Kapoor, has always been a man with a plan. His willingness and ability to think beyond the ordinary gave the Indian banking industry more than anyone could have imagined. But apart from helping his fellow bankers and Indian businesses, this humble personality equally focused on promoting corporate social responsibility.
Rana Kapoor prompted working in harmony with nature and thereby, made sustainable growth as his foremost objective. The idea launched under the innovative arm of Yes Bank – YES COMMUNITY, marked global significance in various arenas. Kapoor’s support meant campaigns such as greening India’s national highways, national road safety week and financial literacy reached their epitome under his patronage.
Running India’s fourth largest private bank, Kapoor made gargantuan contributions to important, yet lagging sectors of the economy. In FY 2016-17, the bank’s initiatives witnessed impressive growth and touched 20,19,900 lives through 6,156 activities. Notably, the numbers surpassed the initial benchmark, positively changing 8,00,000 lives.
Below listed are some of the most successful programs under Rana Kapoor’s aegis.
Greening India’s national highways
India under its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) vowed to create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tons of CO2 equivalent by 2030. Today, this is getting done via plantation of additional forests and tree cover. Yes Bank joined hands on greening national highways as early as 2016. They were also the first private institution to undertake a CSR commitment to ‘Adopt a Green Highway’, under the NGHM initiative. Not only did Yes Bank’s sponsorship have a green impact, but it also generated employment opportunities for the local rural community and it brought together NGOs, the private sector, financial institutions, government agencies and the forest departments.
Waste management
Waste management is one of the major problems for the modern world; and India being the second most populous nation, generates tons of garbage each day. To deal with the crisis, Yes Bank under Rana Kapoor worked closely towards raising awareness among students about the need to recycle. Yes Bank conducted workshops in schools on making paper gift bags from waste paper.
National Road Safety Week
The second week of January is denoted as National Road Safety Week. Yes Bank being a responsible organization took up this campaign to encourage staying vigilant on the road. Introducing the reform, it performed activities under the theme “Your safety, secures your family – Be cautious on Road,” to underscore the requirement for safe and accident free roads. Rana Kapoor’s bank partnered with local dealers of two-wheelers, as well as Hero Moto Corp to broaden the scale of this initiative.
Financial Literacy
Digitisation in India has been a significant challenge, and the magnitude of the problem multiplied as the government of India demonetized certain currency. After the move halted the regular flow of currency, the common man had no choice but to switch to digital platforms. Rana Kapoor helped the government of India’s plan by converting Yes Bank’s branches into Digital Banking Literacy Centres. At the centers, Yes Bank conducted sensitisation sessions for its customers to explain the benefits of going digital. The upskilling was also majorly done to make people aware of reliable digital platforms and to be vigilant of scammers. Other than that, separate sessions on ‘fake note detection’ were conducted for relevant stakeholders.
Rana Kapoor fared brightly against all odds and paved the way for people to feel comfortable with the changes taking place around them. He also presented numerous ways to ensure social corporate responsibilities never lost their vitality, and remained hand-in-hand with business growth.
