Mrs. Rajashree Birla

Non-Executive Director

Mrs. Rajashree Birla is an exemplar in the area of community initiatives and rural development. Mrs. Birla chairs the Aditya Birla Centre for Community Initiatives and Rural Development, the Group’s apex body responsible for development projects.  She oversees the social and welfare driven work across all the Group’s major companies. The footprint of the Centre’s work straddles over 9,000 villages, reaching out to 11 million people. The Group runs 24 hospitals. The Group reaches out to well over 100,000 students through its network of 54 formal schools and non-formal educational institutes. Of these, girls constitute 50%. Both its hospitals as well as schools are ‘Not for Profit’ institutions.

Mrs. Birla is a member of the Advisory Board, Columbia Global Center, Mumbai.  She is the Chairperson of Xynteo’s Vikaasa Advisory Board.  She chairs FICCI – Aditya Birla CSR Centre for Excellence.  Mrs. Birla serves as the Chairperson on the Habitat for Humanity India’s IndiaBuilds Advisory Committee, and is an active member of the Habitat for Humanity Asia Pacific Development Council. Furthermore she serves as a member at the Habitat for Humanity International Global Council. Alongside she is also engaged with the Breach Candy Hospital Trust.

She is the Chairperson of FICCI’s first ever Expert Committee on CSR and is on the Board of BAIF Development Research Foundation, Pune, a Trustee of the Gujarat Vidyapith, and a Member of the Advisory Committee of the Mahatma Gandhi Sabarmati Ashram Memorial Trust.

As a patron of arts and culture, she is the President of the “Sangit Kala Kendra”, a Centre for performing arts, as well as the INT-ABPAA (INT Aditya Birla Performing Arts Academy).

In recognition of the exemplary work done by Mrs. Rajashree Birla, leading national and international organisations have showered accolades upon her. Among these the most outstanding one has been that of the Government of India who bestowed the ‘Padma Bhushan Award’ in 2011 on Mrs. Rajashree Birla in the area of ‘Social Work’. 

Most recently she was named the recipient of the ‘Lal Bahadur Shastri Award for Excellence 2024’.  At the G20 EMPOWER Meet in Ahmedabad, the ‘G20 EMPOWER Award for ‘Lifetime Achievement’ was conferred upon Mrs. Birla by Smt. Smriti Irani, the erstwhile Minister of Women and Child Development / Minority Affairs, Government of India.  Furthermore, Mrs. Birla was named as an exemplar in Rotary International’s healthcare programmes by the Hon'ble President, Smt. Droupadi Murmu. Yet another prestigious award accorded to Mrs. Birla is BRICS ‘Living Legend and Icon for Community Excellence and Lifetime Achievement Award’, at the hands of the then President of India, Mr. Ram Nath Kovind. 

Additionally, for Mrs. Birla’s unrelenting endeavours towards polio eradication, she was given the much coveted ‘Polio Eradication Champion Award’ by the Government of India. Likewise, the ‘Global Golden Peacock Award for CSR’ was bestowed upon her by Dr. Ola Ullsten, the Former Prime Minister of Sweden in Portugal. Among other distinctive awards conferred upon Mrs. Birla include - the All-India Management Association’s ‘Corporate Citizen of the Year Award’, the IOD’s ‘Distinguished Fellowship Award’ and the ‘FICCI FLO Golden Laurel Award’.  Under her exemplary leadership, the Economic Times’ prestigious ‘Corporate Citizen of the Year Award’ was presented twice to the Group in 2002 and 2012 and received by Mrs. Birla.

Her directorships in body corporates are as follows: