India Inc treads diverse path with more women on top

Corporate India is striving to bring more women into the leadership ranks.

Mphasis, RPG Group, KPMG, Target and PepsiCo are among companies that are rolling out initiatives like career sponsorship, management and leadership training, executive coaching, professional development programmes, job rotation, career counselling and collaboration with recruiters to implement inclusive hiring and equal pay interventions to narrow the diversity gap at the top.

Executives at these companies say that the priority is to build teams that represent the communities in which they operate, and business thrives when employees feel like they belong and have equitable access to opportunity.

According to the Economic Graph report published by LinkedIn and The Quantum Hub earlier this year, while female representation in India Inc has increased to 27% in 2024 from 24% in 2016, the share of women in leadership roles has moved up to only 18.3% from 16.6%.

“It offers our women employees the opportunity to define their career objectives by pairing them with a mentor who has an established career in the participant’s chosen field,” said Ayaskant Sarangi, chief HR officer at IT firm Mphasis that has a ‘Womentoring’ programme to mentor and train female employees to take on leadership roles.

“We consistently engage our leadership and staffing teams in conversations regarding the importance of representation, and to ensure we collaborate with recruiters to implement inclusive hiring practices and equal pay interventions to ensure a diverse leadership pipeline,” Sarangi added.RPG Group offers formal training, mentoring and coaching coupled with experiential learning opportunities to groom female employees for leadership roles. Women are excelling in leadership roles not just in support functions but also in core operations like sales, marketing and plantation management, said Riya Dalvi, chairperson – diversity, equity and inclusion at the conglomerate.At Target, high-performing female employees are taken through a six-month programme called ‘Ignite’, which focuses on personal branding, negotiation skills, networking and, for the first time this year, mindful mentorship, said Arun Kulkarni, vice-president – human resources at the Indian unit of the American retailer.

“Women hold leadership roles across the business – in technology, operations, marketing and business. This includes our highest-level leader in India – Andrea Zimmerman, president of Target in India,” Kulkarni said.

Recently, KPMG rolled out the Prism leadership development programme, focusing on key skills that women need to build on, with curated virtual tracks that women leaders can choose from.

The purpose is to provide a platform to apply strategies and learning around the chosen topics, and each female leader picks as many tracks as possible of her choice, said Reena Wahi, partner and head of people, performance and culture at KPMG in India. The company plans to have women in 29% of leadership roles next year, and is accelerating hiring across levels with a focus on female employees during hiring and promotion cycles.

Beverages firm PepsiCo has implemented mentorship and coaching programmes, as well as enabling policies covering caregivers, health and wellbeing.

The companies are trying to address high attrition among female employees.

While KPMG offers hybrid work arrangements so that women have the flexibility to work from home as and when needed, there are also leave policies that enable them to take time off to fulfil primary childcare or eldercare responsibilities. RPG Group’s sabbatical policy enables female employees to take extended leave for personal or professional development.

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