Philanthropists

"Integrity, public service and common good are the key deciding factors for any decision that will be taken,” Lopez had said upon her appointment. “Any industry must bear in mind that the common good is paramount in their operations and not the money they make."

"Life is what you make of it. The experience of life is how you see it. You can see it negatively or you can see even the seeming failures as a positive opportunity to grow. If we take on this positive bent, everyone around benefits. My consistent experience in life is that as long as one commits to integrity and service, there are Divine Forces that help. I feel it every day, when I meditate in the morning, as I do my work. Life is a challenge. There are also negative forces that exist, and they are within one’s self. One needs to be keenly aware of them."

"As some of you may know, I am having health challenges which I have found a blessing. So yesterday morning, I was was blessed to have a visit from Gary, his wife Angeli, and the sister of Maricel who is also a very beautiful person."

"You cannot love God without loving the environment. God is everywhere. You can see his hand in everything. From the plants to the stars,"

"She talks of how she felt when she left her body. Heaven is so nice. She didn’t want to come back. So, there is life after ‘death."

"But while we are in this body, let’s be healthy, and contribute in whatever way we can to a world that runs on love. I have no doubt that that’s the way."

"It’s an awakening of the people."

"For all these billions, what do we get in return? Think about the damage done by mining corporations to our biodiversity, to agriculture, and to the health of those living in the area. They don’t pay for these damages"

"There is no such thing as responsible mining in an island ecosystem. Companies should not break the beauty of agricultural places. Why don’t they clean up the mess they left in abandoned mining sites first? They have to prove to us that they are capable of rehabilitating those areas."

"Then I met someone in Harvard who recommended I go to an ashram that taught meditation. When I entered the ashram, apart from the meditation, they had some singing. I had an experience. I felt something deep. Tears rolled down my cheeks, I felt something I had not felt in church or in school. I had a feeling of Divine Love. That changed my life forever."

"When one doesn’t have much, one treasures every little bit. I lived as the poor lived, so I learned how not to be wasteful—a trait I carry to this day where I use every bit of everything. I learned how to value empty containers, because they can be of use eventually."

"I can’t say to you, “I live in a country of 1 billion and I’m touching 2 million or 3 million lives.” We don’t have fancy numbers to show, but I think we concentrate on depth of philanthropic impact and not breadth"

"These children have been phenomenal in the amount that they’ve developed. And hopefully in my lifetime, one of the VidyaGyan students will be the prime minister of India – that would be exciting"

"So government should do what they do, and philanthropists should continue to act independently, too, but there are also many opportunities for them to work together through public-private partnerships"

"The work we do is driven by our conviction to drive meaningful transformation by harnessing the power of inclusive education"

"The steppingstone for building a great leader is getting a great education"

"We believe in depth, not breadth—at any given time, we’re only touching maybe 10,000 students. A lot of people say that we could be touching so many more lives, but you can’t touch that many lives if you’re trying to make a leader"

"We have to plug the gap and bring them back without treating it as lost time"

"HCL does a lot more on semiconductor design and works with organisations from all over the world. I was in Taiwan last year and I met with leaders of companies. Yes, it’s got the might but one of the leaders rightly pointed out that it took them 40 years to get there. So much of it had to do with the way skills evolved. We (India) have catching up to do, but technology will shrink that time of catching up. Investment in R&D and skills can’t be spearheaded by industries alone"

"The evolution and leadership transition started almost 15 years before it happened. We have had three CEO transitions and two CFO transitions in that period. Such changes prepare the board. When he transitioned out of the board, I had already been on it since 2013. I have been working at HCL since 2008. When he transitioned out of the company as chairperson, he completely left the organisation and the board. That was a mark of a mature organisation and of trust"

"With generative AI, it’s impacting the individual and helping in all walks of life. We are figuring out a way to evolve with it. The skills take a while to catch up. Our educational institutions also have a lot of catching up to do. Skills around data engineering, cyber security, and IoT (the Internet of Things) will have to evolve. Educational institutions have to start this if India has to stay ahead"

"Such moments have been part of our evolution. Back in the 70s when the calculator came, everybody was scared and thought that children didn’t need to learn math. Then, we evolved the system of using them (along with students learning math). A few generations later came the search engine. Everybody was looking at information online and there was a certain evolution that took place there too. Then came the iPod and after that shortly came the iPhones and everything was available at fingertips. It evolved and helped consumers"

"Have a little faith in young daughters, they are not too bad"

"There will be some jobs that will go through a certain evolution, in the world of generative AI. However, there will be new jobs that will be created. If some companies are reducing headcount, it’s perhaps for a certain segment of jobs, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that opportunities will reduce. I think it will grow"

"In 2020, pre covid, there was talent in the big cities. There were centres in the likes of Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad and Noida among others. The evolution post covid is that a lot of talent is now spread across the smaller cities. We are struggling to get people back at work as a lot of people want to work remotely for reasons like bigger cities are more expensive to stay in"

"India is the technology talent hub of the world. It also helps global companies achieve diversity goals as the country produces the highest STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) talent in the world when it comes to females. Unfortunately, if you look at the data, it’s declining, but it’s still the largest number in the world"

"So we asked ourselves, if we want a female CEO in a decade, what steps do we need to take to get there"

"These women get married, have a family—it’s why they leave"

"Within the top 200 leaders of our company—out of 120,000 employees—we don’t have a single woman leader"

"The museum is under construction. My interest for the fine arts began in the year 1978. I started to bring culture and whenever I bought a painting I have always succeeded!"

"I would tell them to never lose their hopes and to love their fellow men. This is what my live is based on. NOTE: World Investment News Ltd cannot be held responsible for the content of unedited transcriptions."

"Petrol is a global factor... A.B: We have not thought about an expansion into the petrol sector, but into the cement industry, in order to add value to our operations. The cement quality will be smoothed in the future. That is why the difference is in the logistics and in the field of IT, matters that occupy the distribution channel. We are now seeing that the competence is not only between the big cementing groups but it also includes the distribution channels. That is why we are aiming to build a logistic network. We built a very important logistic network that is based on strategic alliances with transports. On the other hand, we count on intelligent software that is a leading case in Latin America because it operates with an advanced distribution system."

"The objective of the expansion plan is to complement a macroeconomic risk of an emerging country and a developed country. That is how we will be able to balance the incomes and the cash flow avoiding- in this way- the cycles that we have as an emergent economy. It is also necessary to increase the access to capital. The Loma Negra´s plants are operating in world class. The operational levels are the same or even better than the most advanced plants of the world. We use self-conducted equipment that compares us to the best practices. We know how to produce cement and we are adding services to that. We consider that the information technology is very important too. Our customers are able to consult their accounts, order and buy through their pages using the Lomanet technology."

"I am still one of the principal industrial voices. I have lots of friends that belong to the actual administration and I was also very close to the politicians that belonged to the previous one. The ex president, Carlos Menem appreciated me a lot. It has been a long time since I know De la Rúa."

"It could be."

"We do not know it yet because we will be starting this project in one or two years from now. We have now to inaugurate this new plant that produces very well. We have just tested it. On the other hand, we want to maintain our personnel because we have almost a mythical relationship with them. We respect each other. This is not the first economic crisis that Argentina has suffered but, certainly, this is the worst one. A.B: This is the longest one and we suppose that the end of this crisis will not have such a tall peak as the Tequila had. One year after we got over this crisis, we sold 25% more. The end of this one would be more gradual with a development of 4 or 5 %. A. L. de F: The increase could be higher; perhaps it would reach the 8 or 10%. During the previous crisis, the country needed constructions. And again, the construction industry will play an important role in reducing the unemployment rate. The actual presidential secretary, Nicolás Gallo, created a General Infrastructure Plan that meant an important source of employment. A.B: This plan requires an investment of 25, 000 million dollars in a proportion of 5,000 million dollars per year. This was a very aggressive plan that covered the entire country and summed more than 150,000 work posts."

"We are now building four dining rooms for a school that is very near here. The children are staying all day at school. We have invested 5,600 million pesos on Education and this figure represents the 27% of the total budget. Then, other 29% are for Health and 31% go to non-profit organizations. We want to help the most humble people. The people that decide to feed poor and hungry children in their dining rooms usually use to enlarge their homes in order to be able to do it every day. I contribute with them because I think that these are the real non-profit organizations. There are newspapers that offer a free space in which these organizations can communicate its necessities and also their phone numbers if the readers want to help or contribute with them. We prefer to deliver the money directly. I gave 500,000 dollars to the United Nations when they were collecting for the hungry children from Bosnia. On the other hand, I bought lots of houses for the homeless people. Loma Negra employs people that fought in Malvinas. We also work with disabled people. We teach them how to do the work."

"We have made a joint venture with ANCAP, an Uruguayan company that produces petrol and cement. This association is very convenient for us because we are going to manage this plant and also sell cement in Brazil or in Buenos Aires. A.B: On the other hand, we have some investment projects with ANCAP because we want to update the plants. We have also thought about exploiting the Uruguayan zone of the Treinta y tres orientales that has great beds of limestone. Then, we are thinking about expanding to the Brazilian South from there. Our alliance with ANCAP also has a regional expansion objective. On the other hand, we also have international expansion plans."

"Yes, we continued with our investment plans. This plant will be ready by March. This is a young country that needs infrastructure. The construction is the mother of all the industries and it also promotes a lot of work posts. This is also a large country. That is why we need transports. We have built this plant thinking about the future. Once the political reliability settles down, Argentina will be able to receive investments from all over the world because this is a peaceful country without any cataclysms."

"We are optimists because this is the first time that we are thinking about building a factory outside the country."

"I do not want to say it because this is a secret that only three people know."

"I cannot tell you this by now."

"“As a businesswoman, I feel responsible for the people around me. I feel a great social responsibility for all I have been given, and I believe it’s my obligation to give it back.”"

"We have lived these last three years with more dynamism than the previous ones. My grandson and I built a factory that will produce 2,500,000 tones of cement per year. We invested 250 million dollars in this project. Alejandro Bengolea (Vice President of Loma Negra): We decided to build this factory in the year 1997. From 1997 until now, the investment projects and the plant cost nearly 450 million dollars. This will be the most modern plant of the entire Southern Cone. A.L. de F: On the other hand, this project includes a factory that we built in Ramallo in association with the Techint Group. This is a milling plant and its dimensions are smaller. It also has an information center for the constructors. We have clients of all sizes and also particular people that want to build their houses. This is also an experimentation center with trucks that go trough the entire country. We have some factories in Catamarca, two in Olavarría, and five in Barker. The company has also other ones in Zapala, San Juan and Paraná."

"In 2016 I had applied to every company that you can think of and I did not get any job. So, that is when I decided that let me be my own boss and do the employing. Everyone was expecting to go into the beauty industry but I met this lady who used to deliver vegetables to my house and so I asked her how she did it. She told me that the first thing that I needed to separate me from the rest of the field was to get a car so I could do deliveries"

"Fast forward to two weeks later and her husband came to deliver vegetables to me and I asked him where she was and he just started crying. He told me that she had passed away and that is when I decided that let me get into this business, if not for myself but for her because she believed in her business so much. It’s sad that I can’t share what’s happened since then with her but that’s how Zwide Veggies was born"

"I’m not going to lie and say Covid-19 has had a bad impact on the business. We have been the busiest during the lockdown. I think it is what has made me open a physical shop. The orders were now overwhelming and I needed a place where I could store the vegetables, a place where people can come and order without doing so online. At some point our site crushed. God would have to punish me if I said that Covid-19 affected me badly because it is what led to the opening of the physical shop"

"We are not choosing any particular child to benefit from our food distribution scheme. We are going to feed every child who needs food as long as they are between the ages five and 18 years old"

"Charity begins at home. That is the reason why I chose to start with Pumula East before going to other townships. I want to give back to my home first before I expand to other suburbs"

"I was heart-broken when one of the grannies cried saying some of the food items (that were donated) were now like luxury. We as a community should try as much as we can to help our fellow brothers and sisters"