Amit Chandra, chairman of Bain Capital Private Equity, India, talks about how the pandemic will make corporate philanthropists think differently about how they can make an impact
Amit Chandra’s idea of philanthropy is donating not just his money, but also his time with communities at the grassroots in the development sector. The chairman of Bain Capital Private Equity, India, who is a former board member of Tata Sons and trustee of Tata Trusts, believes that that the network of philanthropists in India need to give more, especially in the wake of the pandemic threatening to cut corporate funding toward non-Covid-related social causes in the short term.
In an interview with Forbes India on the sidelines of The/Nudge Forum (global edition) on August 15, where he spoke about participative philanthropy in a live online session, Chandra discussed what helped him shift from the corporate world to the social sector and whether capitalism needs to be more empathetic during a crisis. Edited excerpts:
Q. You’ve said that philanthropy is more about changing one’s own life than about changing the world. How did you make that transition from corporate board rooms to working hands-on in the development sector?
People think that philanthropy is about going out and changing lives. I actually believe that the biggest life you change is your own. It [philanthropy] is an extremely fulfilling process. You often end up filling voids and developing yourself as an individual, as the lives of others.
I was lucky that success came to me somewhat early on. As a banker, I was fortunate to rise from the bottom of the pack at DSP Merrill Lynch and run the bank in my mid-30s. In my second innings, I helped build a successful private equity platform. During both those journeys, I have felt success purely from a material perspective—be it capital creation or the power that comes with it, it can be very uni-dimensional and unfulfilling. I felt that very early on, even though it means different things for different people.
For me, I felt fulfilled by engaging with societal problems. It got me to meet with interesting, different people very early on in life. These were grassroot leaders, people who have tackled education and healthcare problems, who have built movements. Through those interactions, I felt like I grew much more as a person.
The first Board I joined in my life was not a corporate Board, but the Board of an organisation called Akanksha [an education nonprofit]. It was also the first Board I chaired, before Bain Capital. There was a point when I was in an equal number of not-for-profit boards as corporate boards. Then there came a time when I started spending equal time in the not-for-profit and for-profit spaces. That’s what I meant by philanthropy being about changing oneself. Otherwise people think that they become great by just giving and changing somebody else’s life.