Five Questions about SRI – Weekly Expert Interview with Namita Vikas, President and Chief Sustainability Officer, YES BANK, Mumbai, India – February 15, 2013
By Geoffrey on February 15, 2013
Each week Emerging Markets ESG publishes an interview entitled, “Five Questions about Socially Responsible Investment (SRI).” The interview features a practitioner’s insights about SRI in emerging markets and through Emerging Markets ESG shares this expertise with a wide global audience. The goals of Five Questions about SRI are fourfold:
- To collect a catalogue of examples of SRI in practice in emerging markets;
- To raise awareness about SRI in emerging markets;
- To reflect on what SRI in emerging markets means to practitioners; and
- To enable SRI practitioners in emerging markets to network with peers around the world.
This week’s interview is with Namita Vikas, President and Chief Sustainability Officer, YES BANK, Mumbai, India.
YES BANK, India’s fourth largest private sector bank, is the outcome of the professional & entrepreneurial commitment of its Founder, Mr. Rana Kapoor, and his top management team, to establish a high quality, customer centric, service driven, private Indian bank catering to the future businesses of India. YES BANK has adopted international best practices, the highest standards of service quality and operational excellence, and offers comprehensive banking and financial solutions to all its valued customers. YES BANK has a knowledge driven approach to banking, and a superior customer experience for its retail, corporate and emerging corporate banking clients. YES BANK is steadily evolving as the Professionals’ Bank of India with the vision of “Building the Best Quality Bank of the World in India” by 2015. Namita Vikas is President and Chief Sustainability Officer at YES BANK. She spearheads YES BANK’s Version 2.0 Vision & Strategy of further strengthening the bank as a commercially viable financial institution with sustainability principles incorporated within its core operations. Namita is also responsible for mainstreaming sustainability via a two-pronged approach of Responsible Banking in Thought and Responsible Banking in Action. Her work involves sustainability research, strategic philanthropy, Triple Bottom-line Accounting, Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) and building innovative models through social enterprises incubation. She nurtures a range of external and internal stakeholder relationships to create innovative, scalable and financially viable approaches to development and public policies for YES Bank. Institutionalizing and formation of “YES Foundation” is one of her immediate critical agenda items. Namita has over 22 years of experience in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), public affairs, communications and policy advocacy. She has held leadership positions with Marico Ltd, Microsoft Corporation and the Confederation of Indian Industry. Prior to joining YES BANK, she headed the Marico Innovation Foundation, which she was instrumental in establishing. Namita serves as a Jury on The World Bank’s Development Market Place initiative for India, Tata Group Innovista Awards, and Mariwala Foundation Women Entrepreneurship Awards. She is an Advisory Board member of Responsible Investment Research Association (RIRA) and of the Indian Centre for CSR (ICCSR). Besides, she is a member of National Committees on Sustainability & Innovation of FICCI and ASSOCHAM. Namita has an Advanced Management Degree in CSR and Leadership from the Svenska Institute, Sweden, a Bachelor degree in Economics and Diploma in Business Management from Mumbai University.