Mexico at its best in CSR - Gustavo Perez bestowed an award by the Social Enterprise Research Instit
MexCham was recently honored with the visit of Mr. Gustavo Pérez Berlanga, chairman of the United Nations Compact Network and who has recently been bestowed an award by the Social Enterprise Research Institute (SERI)* in Hong Kong.
Gustavo is also a senior executive at Grupo Toks, one of the leading restaurant chains in Mexico. Toks’ first Corporate Social Responsibility activities were an assortment of initiatives, usually transactional schemes, deployed sporadically. These initiatives brought to bear the interest and commitment from staff and management, and slowly they were able to consistently fund certain worthy projects.
One of these was Fundación Michou y Mau, a charity which helps care for children victims of burns. The charity invited Gustavo to witness how the resources were making a difference in the lives of these children and their families, even getting to know one of the victims.
The visit galvanized his will to improve the company’s CSR program – and transformed it into one of the best managed globally.
This transformation has been widely recognized, and has earned Toks and Gustavo’s team numerous awards, and has brought Mr. Berlanga to the board of the Global Compact – having been personally appointed by the United Nations’ Secretary General Mr. Ban Ki-Moon.
