Banking on social impact

Vikram Gandhi is giving back to society through community service

At the age of 9 or 10, when most children were busy playing cricket or football on weekends, Vikram Gandhi taught English to 5- to -6 year-olds at an orphanage at Byculla in Mumbai called Asha Daan. It was during those days that the concept of community service got embedded in his impressionable mind.

 

After 12 years at Cathedral school, Gandhi was studying at Sydenham College when he along with counterparts at IIT Delhi and Delhi University spearheaded AIESEC India, a programme that allowed exchange of students between India and other countries. Gandhi got elected to head AIESEC globally and spent a year at Brussels in 1984-85. On his return, he worked for two years for Ratan Tata who had also played a big role in helping AIESEC India get off the ground.

 

In 1987, Gandhi decided he needed international exposure and some more education, so he applied and got into Harvard Business School — he was one of four Indians in a class of over 900. “A summer job at McKinsey gave me insight into the world of investment banking,” says Gandhi.

 

After graduating from Harvard, Gandhi joined Morgan Stanley where he spent the next 16 years of his life — during which he was the country head of Morgan Stanley India during 1997-2000. Gandhi was already married and had his first child, a daughter, at the dorms in Harvard. She too just graduated from there recently.

 

Soon after Gandhi got back to New York, a golfing friend, Steve Rockefeller, said that he had got quite involved with microfinance and that he thought Gandhi too would find it of interest. Rockerfeller invited him to a dinner where he said this person from Bangladesh was coming.

 

At the time, Grameen Bank was relatively unknown, Mohammed Yunus was yet to win the Nobel peace prize and the whole area of microfinance was largely unexplored territory; yet Gandhi went for the dinner. During his stint in India, he too had begun to see the beginnings of the power of microfinance and the impact it could have.

 

That was the beginning of his involvement with the Grameen Foundation, set up by Yunus back then in Washington DC. Gandhi was invited to join the board (he’s still on it) and he did. “I found the whole thing fascinating. Empowering women through a sustainable model not based on charity was something that could and should be replicated around the world but especially in India,” says he.

 

So even while he continued with his career, he remained involved with the impact sector. The foundation initially provided seed funding for many of the top microfinance institutions in India today.

 

From Morgan Stanley, Gandhi moved to Credit Suisse in 2005, where he stayed for the next six years. Even within Credit Suisse, as part of its philanthropic initiatives, Gandhi remained a big sponsor of microfinance in India. “We’d do huge conferences in New York getting the whole community together at the time,” he says.

 

Around that, Mexican firm Compartamos started talking to Credit Suisse about going public. After its success, Indian microfinance companies also turned ambitions and soon SKS Microfinance went public.

 

At the same time, Gandhi and his former wife (he had got divorced two years ago) set up the Giving Back Foundation which worked in the area of empowering women and children. His wife was the CEO; Gandhi, on his part, was supportive and deeply involved.

 

In 2011, he moved with Credit Suisse to Hong Kong to head one of its global businesses. Money was not an issue anymore, so the zeal to earn more didn’t fire him any longer. At the same time, he was watching with wonderment how microfinance was working and impacting lives. “It suddenly struck me that rather than running the treadmill and earning more and more money, I could make a real difference by doing something totally different,” says he.

 

In 2012, he quit Credit Suisse and moved to Delhi (he had this flexibility since his children were studying in the US). Although he had spent many years overseas, Gandhi never gave up his Indian passport, which reveals his “nationalistic” side. And that’s when he donned all his current hats — four in all.

 

In 2014, he set up Asha Impact, named after Asha Daan, the orphanage he was involved with as a child. Asha Impact is a trust for advocacy and promoting the areas it has invested in, be in through government policy or any other method. Since these recommendations and suggestions flow not from a think-tank but an organisation that is associated closely with the business, they are practical and do-able.

 

When he looked more closely at the impact sector in India, it bothered him that the majority of the capital was foreign — very little Indian money was coming in.

 

So, along with former GECIS CEO Pramod Bhasin, he started to finance ventures. Together, they have made eight or nine across sectors from their personal funds. Gandhi and a small team working on this identify and fund new businesses with an impact filter targeted at the bottom of the pyramid. Ashish Dhawan (ex head of Chrys Capital) and a few other high-net-worth individuals have joined in now and Gandhi calls it a “virtual fund”.

 

“Bringing business  principles and skills to solve important social problems is important because it increases the probability of success both in terms of scalability and sustainability,” he argues. 

 

“I strongly believe that investing on a commercial basis and doing good at the same time is possible and there is increasing evidence that supports this thesis” adds Gandhi, hoping that over time more people in India get convinced about this.

 

Along with Asha, Gandhi also decided to follow his other passion of teaching. He’s now a professor at Harvard, his alma mater. He also advises some of the larger investors in the US (families and foundations) as it keeps an “eye on the larger picture”. And his work with the Grameen foundation continues.

 

So while he may have quit a high-profile job and life as an investment banker, Gandhi has a full plate nevertheless. But this phase of his life is more about giving than taking.