Holly Stinson, Author at Puneet Gupta

Greenock Entrepreneur Named Benefactor of Leading Veterans’ Charity

by Holly Stinson | Dec 23, 2022 | Uncategorized

A Greenock-based business owner has been named a benefactor of the UK’s leading veterans’ mental health charity, Combat Stress.

Puneet Gupta, co-founder of PG Paper, is now a benefactor of the charity after many years of championing mental health causes.

Combat Stress was founded over a hundred years ago to help former servicemen and women with mental health problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and depression. Today the charity provides a range of online, community, outpatient and residential specialist services to veterans living with complex mental health issues.

This comes hot on the heels of a partnership between PG Paper and local mental health charity MindMosaic, which was implemented by Puneet, and saw staff complete Mental Health Champion Training. All colleagues also have access to confidential and dedicated counselling and support as part of the initiative.

Puneet said: “I’m extremely proud to have been made a Benefactor of Combat Stress as they do such important work with former servicepeople. This cause is very close to my heart, and I look forward to continuing my support of the charity through further fundraising efforts and by driving awareness of the incredible work they do.”

Kate Alexander, Head of Major Gifts, at Combat Stress, said: “The support we receive through donations is absolutely essential, allowing us to provide our expert, specialist treatment to veterans with complex mental health issues. The generosity of Mr Gupta and his fellow benefactors makes a tangible difference to the lives of veterans – and to their families – by helping them to tackle their past and take on the future.”

“Our mission is to provide support and treatment to veterans to help them tackle the past and take on the future, and without donations from our supporters, this simply would not be possible.”

To find out more about Combat Stress, go to www.combatstress.org.uk.

PG Paper Named Scotland’s International Business of the Year!

by Holly Stinson | Dec 22, 2022 | Uncategorized

PG Paper is delighted to end the year celebrating winning The FSB Scotland’s International Business of the Year award.

The FSB Small Business Awards recognise the best small businesses from the UK, offering national recognition for those who have made the biggest impression in 2020.

Puneet Gupta, PG Paper’s COO said “On behalf of the whole team we are absolutely delighted to win this award. Our vision is to be a leading global partner within the paper, board and tissue industry. We are very grateful for the continued dedication and expertise of our staff, without whom our continued international growth and diversification would not have been possible.”

Twelve area awards finals take place, with the UK final taking place at a VIP attended awards ceremony in May 2021 in London.

PG Paper is now automatically entered into the UK Final being held on 27 May 2021.

INDIAN PRIME MINISTER WELCOMED TO SCOTLAND BY LEADING, INDO-SCOT ENTREPRENEURS

by Holly Stinson | Dec 22, 2022 | Uncategorized

Poonam and Puneet Gupta, owners and joint CEO’s of PG Paper, were among the first in Scotland to welcome the official Indian delegation as they touched down in Glasgow this week.

Poonam and Puneet Gupta, the husband-and-wife co-founders of PG Paper, played host to the group of Indian representatives attending the climate change summit, which included Prime
Minister Narendra Modi and Bhupender Yadav, India’s Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

The Guptas were joined by an array of Indian diaspora representatives from across Scotland at the reception and took the opportunity to discuss the importance of strengthening Indo-Scots relations.

Puneet said: “This was a fantastic opportunity to speak with the Prime Minister of India, particularly at a time where the eyes of the world will be on Scotland. I believe stronger relations between India and Scotland will be a key part of our post-Covid economic recovery, and I’d like to see the two countries working more closely together going forward, so I hope this visit from the Indian PM will be the first of many more to come.”

Poonam, who was recently appointed to the Board of Directors at the Asia Scotland Institute, said: “This is the first time Prime Minister Modi has visited Scotland and it was an honour to meet him and his ministerial team on several occasions during his 3-day visit. This is a pivotal moment for Indo-Scots relations and we are committed to facilitating discussions between the two nations.”
The Guptas have strong ties to India, and earlier this year, Poonam and Puneet harnessed resources from across PG Paper’s international offices in order to send over 4,000 oxygen concentrators to India as the country battled its second wave of Covid.

Poonam continued: “We were deeply impacted by the crisis in India; we lost close family members, friends, and colleagues. Puneet and I were very grateful to both the PG Paper team, our wider business communities, and other charitable organisations working alongside us in this appeal.”

Prime Minister Modi’s visit has received significant media coverage as the world watches the globe’s political leaders at COP26.

Co-Existence is Key as we Celebrate World Elephant Day

by Holly Stinson | Oct 11, 2021 | Environmental News

Today marks the 10^th Anniversary of World Elephant Day, launched to bring international attention to the urgent plight of Asian and African elephants, under threat of poaching, habitat loss, human-elephant conflict and mistreatment in captivity. The elephant is loved and respected by people throughout the world, yet we balance on the brink of seeing the last of this magnificent creature.

PG Paper is proud to work closely with Elephant Family, a UK-based wildlife conservation charity established in 2003, working with Asian elephants and local people in their communities across the Indian Subcontinent to protect the species. Asian elephant numbers are in severe decline and are now featured on the IUCN Red List.

The Tartan Trekkers

PG’s leadership team, philanthropists Puneet and Poonam Gupta, took part in the “Travels to my Elephant” rickshaw race across India in 2015, and again in 2017. Organized by the Elephant Family and the Quintessentially Foundation the race raises awareness and money for the Asian Elephant’s plight and was inspired by the charity’s founder, the late great Mark Shand.

Serial entrepreneur ‘Puneet Gupta’ commented:

“Poonam and I were privileged to take part in the 2015 and 2017 races. As “The Tartan Trekkers” our journey saw our rickshaw valiantly fighting for road space with buses, cars, people and cows. It was an amazing, fun and challenging experience with such a central message around the importance of humans and elephants sharing space on our planet.”

The CoExistence Campaign

This key message of co-existence was the theme of the recent CoExistence Campaign which saw a herd of beautifully sculptured elephants arrive in The Mall from the Cotswolds, before making their way through Chelsea, St James’s Park and Berkeley Square in London.

Puneet Gupta, was not only there, he got to meet his very own elephant:

“The project is a partnership between the Real Elephant Collective and the Elephant Family, a charity I have supported for many years. Poonam and I were delighted to meet our very own elephant sculpture, aptly named “Rickshaw” when we visited the environmental art installation a couple of weeks ago. As we prepare for COP26 it’s incredibly important that we look at how humans and wildlife can successfully live and flourish side-by-side on our planet.”

More Information/reading

Elephant Family

the Real Elephant Collective

CoExistence campaign

World Elephant Day

UN Climate Change Conference

Igniting PG Paper’s Purpose in a Time of Crisis

by Holly Stinson | Oct 10, 2021 | Company News

Just over a year ago I wrote an article for our digital audience on the importance of purpose at PG Paper, the company I lead with my wife Poonam Gupta OBE. I wrote it at a time when the firm was looking forward to the year ahead, planning our strategic goals, and Covid was not on our horizon.

Covid redefines our work and personal lives

The next 12 months saw the world pivot on its axis. Across our planet, people have lost their livelihoods, their health, and over 3 million have lost their lives to Covid.

In common with so many businesses, PG Paper worked hard to deal with the enormous and ongoing impact of Covid as customer needs changed and staff worked remotely across the world.

PG Paper went into survival mode. More than ever before, our values and purpose were what pulled us through. We built on our resilience, our entrepreneurship, and our kindness to each other.

PG Paper is a truly international company. We have staff, suppliers, and customers throughout the world, we speak many different languages and are culturally diverse. As the Covid wave moved across our planet, we dealt with the impact of that on our business, staff, clients, and suppliers.

We’ve worked hard over the past few months to learn from this experience and make PG Paper’s purpose as meaningful, relevant and impactful as possible during these difficult times.

Focusing on Good Mental Health

Social distancing and Working from Home have created significant stress and anxiety over the past year. We’ve partnered with a mental health charity to provide resources, training, and professional, one-to-one support to our staff.

Supporting Good Causes Globally and Locally

PG Paper has a long history of supporting a number of local, national and international charities including those working with vulnerable children and young adults, those working to extend access to education and healthcare, and we are proud to support a number of environmental initiatives too.

In December last year we supported a number of smaller local charities, nominated by our staff. The charities had all been adversely impacted by Covid with fundraising opportunities greatly diminished and we hope our Christmas toys and gifts, sanitizer units, clothes, and financial contributions helped charities close to our hearts.

Staying Connected with each other

We’ve stayed connected and supportive with more virtual staff catch-ups and last month, although there wasn’t a black-tie or evening gown in sight, we all got together (virtually) to attend Action for Children’s Virtual Sports Dinner.

India’s Oxygen Crisis

Never has our purpose been stronger and clearer than in the past couple of weeks when India announced that it was running out of oxygen in the midst of a huge surge in Covid19 cases.

The PG Paper team has spent the last fortnight working tirelessly to source, buy and deliver thousands of oxygen concentrators and oxygen generator machines. Poonam, myself and our international team have worked closely and collaboratively with NGOs, hospitals, and both the UK and Indian administrations to distribute these as effectively and efficiently as possible.

We are one of many organisations in the UK and across the world who are working to help ease the time critical situation in India.

The past week has made our purpose completely personal both for myself and for so many of the PG Team. We have lost close family members friends and colleagues.

The past year may have been challenging but it is our unwavering focus on PG’s purpose that leads our daily actions and our way forward. We feel privileged to be in a position of being able to help India during this crisis. Our efforts, like so many other organisations and individuals, will continue over the next week and our thoughts and prayers remain with our colleagues, customers, family, and friends in India.

A Call to CEOs

Before Covid, I attended numerous business leader events focused on the growing importance of purpose in business. Organizations that are driven by purpose benefit from better-engaged employees, increased customer loyalty, are more innovative and financially successful. Although so many businesses have been badly hit by the lockdown in the past year, with CEOs, managing directors and company owners managing their businesses in “survival mode”, it will be the refining and refocusing of their purpose that makes organizations stand out and succeed during this critical time. Are you focused on your purpose?