NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Oct 16, 2013) - BNP Paribas is delighted to announce the winners of the 2013 Individual Philanthropy Awards.
2013 Grand Prix
Shiv Nadar receives this year's Grand Prix for the work carried out by the Shiv Nadar Foundation, of which he is founder and Chairman. Set up in 2006 to manage this leading industrialist's various philanthropic initiatives, the Foundation seeks to provide a 'world-class education' to young people from families living below the poverty line in India.
2013 Jury's Special Prize
Charles Slaughter is awarded the Jury's Special Prize for his philanthropic work in Uganda, combating infant mortality by distributing health products at affordable prices.
BNP Paribas Wealth Management was the first private banking institution to become closely involved in philanthropy. In 2008, BNP Paribas Wealth Management set up a special unit to assist clients in their philanthropic endeavours. In order to raise general awareness of the growing global phenomenon of philanthropic giving, BNP Paribas Wealth Management launched that same year the BNP Paribas Awards for Individual Philanthropy. On 10th October 2013 the Grand Prix and the Jury's Special Prize, which recognise outstanding initiatives by major philanthropists, are awarded for the sixth consecutive year.
The winners were chosen by an independent jury made up of leading figures from business and charitable organisations, along with experts from the arts, humanitarian and public sectors. The jury is chaired by Suzanne Berger, Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. In studying the profiles of all the nominees, the jury made their decisions based on various criteria, such as the social impact of their philanthropic initiatives, the philanthropists' personal and financial investment, and the professionalism, viability and transparency of the projects.
The Independent Jury of the BNP Paribas Awards for Individual Philanthropy is composed of:
- Suzanne Berger, Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, Chair of the Jury
- Yann Arthus-Bertrand, photographer and Chairman of the Good Planet Foundation
- Bernard Faivre d'Arcier, President of the Lyon Biennial Contemporary Arts festival and of the Metz en scène concert organisation
- Michael Golden, Vice-President of the New York Times Company
- Lorenz von Habsburg, banker and board director of several listed companies
- Leena Labroo, entrepreneur and director of the Mahindra & Mahindra Educational Trust. Mahindra & Mahindra is one of the top ten industrial corporations in India
- Maria Nowak, Founder and President of the Association pour le droit à l'initiative économique (ADIE), which helps people to set up an independent business
- Louis Schweitzer, former Chairman and CEO of Renault Automobile Group, former Chair of the Haute Autorité de Lutte contre les Discriminations et pour l'Égalité (HALDE), which helps to combat unfair discrimination and fights for social and economic equality
- Amartya Sen, Professor of Economics and Philosophy at the University of Harvard, winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Economics
In addition, the 2012 winners of the BNP Paribas Awards for Individual Philanthropy were invited to sit on the jury for the 2013 Awards:
- Vivianne Senna da Silva Lalli, Founder and President of the Instituto Ayrton Senna in Brazil (Grand Prix winner 2012)
- Michael de Giorgio, Co-Founder of the Greenhouse Charity (Jury's Special Prize winner 2012).
The two awards categories are:
- The Grand Prix honours an individual or family for their overall philanthropic activity, recognising the exemplary ethical nature of their actions as well as impact and their long-term commitment. BNP Paribas publishes a book on behalf the winner as a means of highlighting their dedicated initiatives and the book on this year's winner will be added to the catalogue of publications promoting past winners.
- The Jury's Special Prize recognises a committed philanthropist who has initiated an original project and has been working on the ground to implement it. The project must have been running for at least three years but still be in its development phase or at a critical stage. The Special Prize confers EUR50,000 for the furtherance of the philanthropist's project.
The causes supported by the 2013 award winners are in keeping with the findings of the BNP Paribas Individual Philanthropy Index -- a survey conducted by Forbes Insights and published in May 2013. Whilst there are regional specificities, the survey revealed that the causes attracting the most support worldwide are health and action for social change.
About the 2013 winners
Shiv Nadar is one of India's leading industrialists and philanthropists. He is the co-founder and Chairman of HCL, an international Technology and IT company with a turnover of US$6.2 billion, but which was set up in 1976 as a 'garage start up' with a few friends and former colleagues trading under the name Hindustan Computer Ltd.
Shiv Nadar launched his first philanthropic initiative in 1996, the SSN College of Engineering, which is today known as SSN Institutions and this comprises four centres of excellence in the field of engineering and technology.
Having himself come from a humble, rural background, Shiv Nadar sees himself as a "product of education" and firmly believes that education is the most powerful force for personal and social transformation. As a result, he has concentrated his philanthropic activities on setting up sustainable educational institutions that offer high-quality education to talented but underprivileged pupils from rural areas and focuses on 'leadership for change'. Today the Shiv Nadar Foundation manages educational establishments providing schooling from kindergarten level through to Grade 12, as well as engineering and technology colleges, a university and a modern art museum.
http://www.shivnadarfoundation.org/
Charles ('Chuck') Slaughter founded Living Goods in 2006, before officially setting up in Uganda in 2008 in partnership with BRAC, a local microfinance organisation. Nicknamed the 'Avon' of rural health, Living Goods operates a network of saleswomen in Uganda who go door-to-door, offering basic, essential health products to the less well-off at affordable prices. Designed as a sustainable model, this approach enables the needy to obtain vital health products and provides steady employment to the sales team, who are mainly community health workers.
Before establishing Living Goods, Chuck Slaughter set up TravelSmith Outfitters in 1991, turning the company into a leading travel apparel brand, with some 2 million loyal customers. He sold his stake in TravelSmith in 2004.
He then became the pro-bono Chairman of The Health Store/Child and Family Welfare (CFW), a network of pharmacies and small franchised clinics serving deprived rural populations in Kenya, and succeeded in restoring the organisation to financial health.
This experience sparked his interest in flexible business models. He joined Avon as a direct marketer and later borrowed their approach when establishing Living Goods, where he now works as full-time Chairman. Chuck Slaughter also invests in and sits on the boards of a number of consumer goods firms.
http://livinggoods.org/
About BNP Paribas Wealth Management (www.wealthmanagement.bnpparibas.com)
BNP Paribas Wealth Management is the world's 7th largest private bank, present in some 30 countries. Over 6,000 professionals, based in every major financial centre, provide a private investor clientele with solutions for optimising and managing their assets. The bank has EUR272 billion worth of assets under management (as at end June 2013).