Pearl Tiwari recalls an early lesson from her school days: going with classmates to support tribal children with their studies, an experience that sparked her first real sense of purpose. “I think I got my first dose of feeling good about doing something I had some skills for, and using that to help children who didn’t have the same opportunities,” she shares. “The satisfaction I felt, it was fun also to do it in groups,” and it quietly set the course for a life in which communities, not corporations, would define success .

Currently, Pearl Tiwari is the CEO of Ambuja Foundation, and she shares her journey in conversation with The Logical Indian. In college, she became deeply involved with the Social Service League, spending Sundays visiting old age homes, extending company to the elderly, or joining peers to dig stretches of road and build small but meaningful bits of village infrastructure. For her, these experiences were as enjoyable as they were impactful, because they were done collectively and were rooted in a sense of purpose rather than obligation.

From Early Influences to Professional Social Work

Academically, Pearl gravitated towards the social sciences, choosing psychology and sociology, disciplines that helped her understand people, behaviour and society at a deeper level. In her own words, these subjects “blended together and led me into TISS (Tata Institute of Social Sciences), which then became the grounding for professional social work.” The Tata Institute of Social Sciences equipped her with theoretical and practical tools to approach development work in a structured, professional way rather than spontaneous giving .

After graduating, she spent about 15 to 16 years in the Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) sector, working with communities on issues ranging from education and health to livelihoods and local institution building. She describes this period as fulfilling in terms of the impact they could see on the ground, but also honest about the constraints: there was meaningful work and visible change, but very little financial security. As her responsibilities in life grew, the persistent insecurity of NGO salaries made her think seriously about how she could continue doing meaningful work while also achieving economic independence.

This internal dilemma between purpose and personal stability became the turning point that took her into the relatively new space of structured Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

Entering the Corporate World and Redefining CSR

Pearl observed a simple reality around her: while NGOs struggled for resources, “the people who had the money were the corporates, but there was really nothing happening there” in terms of thoughtful community engagement. Rather than waiting to be discovered, she took the initiative and wrote to the owners of five or six companies, outlining her experience and skills, and expressing her interest in partnering with them to create meaningful social impact .

One of the responses came from Ambuja’s then-owner, Mr. Narotam Sekhsaria. Pearl credits him as a key reason she stayed in the corporate world much longer than she had initially imagined. “He really gave me the autonomy to do what I do best, allowed me to steer the ship, and positioned me accordingly,” she recalls. What started as a short-term experiment in the corporate sector eventually became a 25-year journey at the intersection of business and development.

From the beginning, she was clear that what she wanted to build was not spontaneous giving in the conventional sense. “You can’t, as a social development professional, only think of how you’re benefiting the community. The company has to benefit as much,” she emphasises. If community work is seen as one-way aid that only flows sporadically, it remains vulnerable to leadership changes, annual budget cuts or shifting corporate priorities. For Pearl, true CSR is a win-win model, one in which the community gains in terms of capabilities, opportunities and quality of life, and the company gains through goodwill, smoother operations, reduced conflict and long term business resilience.

This logic shapes the way she speaks to communities as well. Describing her approach to public hearings and village meetings, she says, “I was very clear that we need to communicate that the more the company does, the more will happen in your villages. Company makes profit, you get more money, simple.” That sentence, in many ways, captures her belief that if the company grows, the community around it must grow too, and that this mutual benefit is what makes CSR both ethical and sustainable.

In a manufacturing business like cement, she firmly believes companies must have the freedom to define their stakeholders in line with their operations. For Ambuja, that meant the rural communities around their plants: people living with environmental impacts, but also with an opportunity to share in the benefits if the business prospered. They “had to partake in that whole progress,” or the growth story would never truly be sustainable.

Building a Holistic Model: Why Water Comes First

Over the years, Ambuja Foundation’s work has evolved into a holistic model anchored in a few key verticals: water, livelihoods, health, education and allied areas like skills and climate resilience. These were not picked theoretically, but emerged, as Pearl puts it, from “experiential learning of what a community requires to reach that level of prosperity or capability.”

She notes that many organisations instinctively start with education and health. While she fully agrees that they are critical, she also points out that in rural, agrarian contexts, starting there without addressing water can limit long-term impact. For farmers and landless labourers alike, water is at the core of both health and livelihoods. Polluted or scarce drinking water leads to frequent illness, while lack of irrigation and groundwater recharge undermines agriculture and wage work. Women spend hours daily fetching drinking water, leaving no time for economic productivity or other activities. In such areas, “You cannot do it without addressing water, it’s so crucial,” she says .

As a result, water became one of the earliest and strongest pillars of Ambuja Foundation’s work. The team invested in watershed development, check dams, rainwater harvesting, groundwater recharge and distribution systems adapted to specific geographies. In places like coastal Gujarat, desert regions of Rajasthan and the hilly terrains of Himachal Pradesh, they realised very quickly that there could be no single template. “It’s not one cookie cutter,” she stresses.

For Pearl, livelihoods sit at the centre of the model, but they are tightly connected with water, health and education. “To me, the most important thing is livelihoods, which is connected to water, it’s connected to health. Without health, without education, there is no wellbeing,” she explains. She pushes holism: “Let us try and see if we can do a bunch of things in a more holistic way, so that the community becomes more prosperous.”

Scaling Through Partnerships and Impact Measurement

Today, Ambuja Foundation deploys 1800–1900 staff for 3–5-year projects with dozens of companies: “We normally look at a three to five year minimum cycle so that we can actually show corporates impacts.” A key learning came through partnerships with specialised NGOs. In 2005–06, Ambuja Foundation collaborated with the Foundation for Research in Community Health (FRCH), which had pioneered training community health workers for maternal and child care in hard-to-reach areas.

Ambuja Foundation teams travelled to observe FRCH’s model, then invited FRCH experts to train and mentor their field staff over two years. This built Ambuja Foundation’s own cadre of 325 “Sakhis”, local women volunteers meaning “friends” in Hindi—deployed in tribal regions with high infant and maternal mortality. Trained in identifying high-risk pregnancies, promoting institutional deliveries, nutrition counselling, and linking families to primary health centres, the Sakhis dramatically boosted safe deliveries from low single digits to 99% in their villages. They became trusted bridges between remote communities and formal healthcare, handling everything from antenatal check-ups to post-delivery follow-ups.

When India’s government launched the Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) programme nationwide, Ambuja Foundation saw an opportunity for synergy rather than duplication. Instead of expanding its parallel Sakhi cadre, Ambuja Foundation shifted to supporting and strengthening the official ASHA workers in their project areas. Leveraging the expertise gained from FRCH and years of Sakhi implementation, Ambuja Foundation provided additional training, supervision, supplies and community mobilisation support to ASHAs. This integration amplified reach while aligning with national health goals, allowing Ambuja Foundation to focus on filling gaps like high-risk referrals and awareness in the hardest tribal pockets.

With the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), Ambuja Foundation now reaches 275,000 licensed cotton farmers across thousands of villages, powering sustainable cotton for Gap and H&M. Women self-help groups produce organic pesticides as part of this programme, creating livelihoods while helping farmers combat pests sustainably and build climate resilience .

Community Focus, Partnerships, and Challenges

Ambuja Foundation’s community engagement begins with listening carefully to local needs rather than imposing solutions. When corporate funding arrives, villagers often demand “build the road, build the temple.” Instead, the foundation conducts participatory needs assessments: “Sit down with the community… make them realise what their priorities are,” guiding them from broad wish lists to essentials like water and health. Notably, 50% of Ambuja Foundation’s rural work focuses on women empowerment, building their skills, leadership and economic independence to drive family and village progress .

Local realities demand flexibility. A hospitality skilling programme thrived in Rajasthan’s tourist hubs but failed in Gujarat, where families flatly refused: “People just said, no, no, we won’t allow our children to go.” Ambuja Foundation pivoted smoothly to nursing training, respecting cultural boundaries. Over 32–33 years, this adaptive approach has built trust across 83 districts and 4,500 villages.

Long before India’s CSR law mandated reporting, Ambuja Foundation tracked outcomes transparently. Today, as companies demand “impact of the money on the ground,” Pearl warns against downgrading CSR roles: “CSR is in many companies getting positioned a little lower… What does a company secretary understand?” Public hearings for plant expansions became testimonials: “Because we were doing such meaningful work… our public hearings used to go like a breeze,” with communities defending Ambuja. For her, this proves CSR’s core truth: “a win-win because it impacts the company’s top and bottom line” .

Gender equality weaves through every programme. “It’s not the time to let it go yet. Gender is here to stay,” she insists. As often the only woman in early meetings, expectations grated—people scanned rooms expecting her to present flowers. She pushed back: “Who says only a woman can give flowers?” Real parity demands mutual growth: “Women have to learn how to be shoulder to shoulder with their male colleagues, and men have to learn how to treat their women colleagues as just colleagues” .

Reflecting on India’s vast challenges, Pearl notes, “More is always less”, even Ambuja Foundation’s reach feels small against the need. Compliance alone falls short: “If you are doing compliance, then you are not doing CSR.” Still, she finds hope in momentum: “very happy to see more partners join and work spread.” From tutoring tribal children to empowering thousands of villages, Pearl Tiwari shows purpose endures when strategy serves compassion, lifting companies and communities side by side.

The Logical Indian Perspective

Pearl Tiwari’s journey exemplifies how strategic CSR can transform rural India when rooted in genuine community needs rather than compliance checklists.

By prioritising water security, women’s empowerment, and sustainable livelihoods, Ambuja Foundation demonstrates that businesses thrive when the villages around them prosper too.

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