Is there a dearth of women leaders in India?

Be it in the boardrooms, in mid or senior leadership roles or in entry-level positions, women's representation in India is dismally low across all positions. What made matters worse is the pandemic that has driven out thousands of women from the workforce because of challenges presented by Covid. However, the scenario is changing with a new push at boosting women's representation across various positions in a company. As per a new gender diversity report from global financial services company, Credit Suisse the women's representation on boards in 2015 was a little over 11% and it went up over 17% in 2021.

In the last six years, India has seen a 6% increase in women's representation on boards, however, the question still remains whether this growth is enough? These figures force us to further question the dearth of women leaders in India and what measures one can take to support the new generation leaders in India. At The ETPrime Women Leadership Awards 2021, we made an effort to bring forward a discussion and conversation around the need for women representation on boards. Taking this dialogue forward are two women leaders Simi Sabhaney, Chief Growth Officer, Dentsu International India, and Anu Acharya, founder and CEO, Mapmygenome.

Dentsu's Sabhaney says that the advertising industry is a boy’s club and she navigated her way through this. “The advertising and media industries are literally infested with boys’ club culture. There is a lot of banter, fun, and networking in the boys club. But then it comes at the cost of excluding women. Here is where I decided to focus my energy to ensure that there's great work that's placed on the table,” she said.

She was of the view that the whole boys club culture and excluding women becomes too much to handle when all this becomes a power game which is not acceptable. “There would be times we would have struggled through the day and evening on a client pitch to come up with something, only to discover the following morning that men over drink have changed it all. If such things happen once or twice, one can say ideas can strike a person at any point of time, day or night, if ultimately the client is going to benefit. But then one day you start realizing it's a pattern getting formed. It's almost rubbishing all the effort that has gone on to the table through the day, and that's not done,” she added.

What really doesn’t work in the boys’ club culture according to Sabhaney, is the power equation that comes into play when forming decisions or policies by this very club over drinks. She says the only way one can challenge this is by forming a club that promotes mixed gender based on common interests.

“There are organizations that have actually put together teams based on certain interest levels. This has done well because then the team starts ideating with each other and there's a lot of cross-pollination of ideas. So in concept, the club culture is a great culture, but it's the voice that needs to really sift it out. Girls can form their own club but I believe it's not about boys versus girls. It's more about inclusion; it's a much richer culture when boys and girls come together,” explains Sabhaney.

Talking about the unicorn startup founders in India, wherein out of the 136 only five are women, Anu Acharya is of the opinion that there are more in the making and it’s just that we haven't reached the level yet. However, Acharya says that challenges for women have always been on the fundraising front.

“Raising capital has always been a challenge for multiple reasons. There are also reasons that maybe not enough people are approaching. I believe it is a two-way problem that we need to work on, the fundraising needs to increase for women in general and making sure that enough people are approaching the right sort of capital,” said Acharya.

Pointing towards women's representation in the life sciences and healthcare sector, Acharya notes that some of the best-known names in the sector are women.

“Take Kiran Mazumdar-Shah or Ameera Shah, a lot of organizations are headed by women. Some of them are unicorns, and some of them are not. So I think there are enough, but we need to increase those numbers. And I think that can be done, while some of it will happen naturally. And as we start seeing more success stories, there'll be a lot more confidence in people to actually invest in women's businesses. But eventually, if we have more women investing themselves, I think we'll see a lot more of a woman being invested into it,” added Acharya.

Finally, on the discussion for mentoring women, especially for leadership roles, something unheard of in our culture, the panel is of the view that it can be inculcated in women from an early age. According to Sabhaney, it all stems from confidence. “One of the important ways to get confident is when you are given forums to present your point of view. Whether it's taking part in a debate where you're facing the entire school, you're carrying yourself with confidence. This goes a long way. The biggest is the fear factor, which needs to really go. But the beautiful thing women bring to the table is they have a fine art of being polite and firm,” she said.

The women leaders in the panel who have excelled in their respective domains were of the view that companies with gender-balanced representation would be more successful going forward. You can watch the panel discussion at The ETPrime Women Leadership Awards 2021 here.