GMR Group chairman, GMRao received the prestigious TV5 Life Time Achievement Award for his immense contributions towards nation building and his philanthropic activities. The award was presented to Rao at TV5 Business Leader Awards 2015, organised on April 25 by Channel TV5 at HICC Novotel, Hyderabad. Rao has set the benchmarks for creating and operating national and international assets of global scale and quality. A go-getter and a serial entrepreneur, he started his entrepreneurial journey from a small jute mill in a remote village and went on to create a mammoth infrastructure conglomerate.
Talking about this entrepreneurial journey, Rao said, “Throughout my journey, I hada series of small dreams which led to a series of small business ventures. Then the economic reforms of the country opened up a big opportunity, which I could ride on and build landmark infrastructure assets for the nation. The biggest turning points in my entrepreneurial journey came when I successfully turned around the Vysya Bank and won the Delhi Airportwhich is nowworld’s number 1 airport.”

A visionary and an institution builder, Rao’s vision is to make GMR Group an institution in perpetuity and for that family constitution was the first step. He believes that corporate governance and family governance are inter-linked blocks completing the cycle of institution building. A committed philanthropist, Rao has dedicated his entire personal wealth to the GMR Varalakshmi Foundation (GMRVF), which funds charitable activities and institutions in the areas of Education, Health, Hygiene & Sanitation, Empowerment & Livelihoods and Community Development.

Elaborating on the philanthropic activities, Rao said, “Aligning with the Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan of our honourable prime minister, GMR Varalakshmi Foundation is working on the three areas of sanitation – Public Toilets, Individual Sanitary Lavatoriesand creating sanitation awareness. We started our sanitation programs 10 years back and till date we have built toilets across nine Indian states and supported more than 450 families to build individual toilets. All these have resulted in improving health and hygiene for various underprivileged sections of the society.

Skill development is also a key focus area for Rao; through his foundation, hehas built 8 state-of-the-art vocational training institutes which apart from imparting technical skills also focuses on entrepreneurship development, personality development, yoga, and spoken English, among others.

In its second year, TV5 Business Leader Awards announcedmore than 35 winners from different sectors including IT, pharma, and agri-processing, among others.