Women Empowerment: Optics vs Statistics

I can thump my chest with confidence and say there is no gender discrimination in the media industry—be it print, broadcast, or digital. All of them have more than their share of women in leadership positions—CEOs and editors alike. Just look at most TV channels, including the state-run Doordarshan; many are led or anchored by women. Sure, there may be stray cases of gender discrimination here and there.

The same holds true for the advertising industry. In both sectors, women and men are largely on the same footing, with little visible discrimination.

Perhaps this bias exists more in public sector companies, the manufacturing sector, or other areas where the workforce is traditionally dominated by men.

Without naming names, I know of one business house that once had a policy of not hiring women. The reasoning was bizarre: women, they believed, could not be trusted to keep the organisation’s strategies or secrets and would inevitably share them with their near and dear ones. But when the younger scion took over, he put a stop to this ‘stupid’ HR practice.

One well-known group from the south was called out for such attitudes. In 2024, the 124-year-old Murugappa Group suddenly found itself in an unenviable position when a family member, Valli Arunachalam—the elder daughter of the late MV Murugappan, chairman of CUMI and part of the $9 billion Murugappa Group—stirred a hornet’s nest. She alleged gender discrimination in board appointments at the group’s holding company, Ambadi Investments, and dragged the matter to court. Eventually, the dispute was resolved out of court.

This brings me to the broader subject of women’s empowerment. The timing could not be better to reflect on the issue against the backdrop of the 115th International Women’s Day celebration. March 8 is celebrated globally to recognise the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also serves as a call to accelerate gender equality.

Coincidentally, in India, over the past few weeks, a couple of surveys and several articles have focused on women’s empowerment and gender discrimination.

Let us take a look at the findings of the second edition of the Women Leadership Survey 2026, jointly conducted by AIMA and KPMG.

The key findings of the survey are:

• 46% of organisations have only 10–30% women in leadership roles.

• 10% of organisations do not have any women in leadership positions.

• In 24% of organisations, the proportion of women in leadership positions rose by 30–50%.

• 20% of organisations reported 50% or more women in leadership roles.

• 74% of organisations have fewer than 30% of their long-term female employees reaching leadership positions.

TV Narendran, President of AIMA, wrote in his foreword: “One survey finding indicates that family and caregiving responsibilities are widely perceived as a significant barrier to women’s career progression. This perception appears particularly pronounced at the mid-career stage, where 65% of respondents believe women are most likely to exit the workforce.”

The AIMA–KPMG survey also notes that “barriers to advancement are primarily structural. Caregiving responsibilities remain the most significant constraint, while 40% of respondents also reported gender bias as a challenge. Limited access to networks, unequal opportunities, unequal pay, and minor skill-related issues were also cited. This suggests that the obstacles women face stem more from organisational systems than from individual limitations.”

Writing in the same report, Sunil Kant Munjal notes: “A 2025 Prime Infobase study of NSE-listed firms shows a consistent pattern across sectors: women constitute 23% of employees in Corporate India, but this drops to 13% at senior management level, 10% at executive director level, and only 5% hold MD or CEO positions.”

Only 1.6% of companies in the Fortune 500 in India are led by women, according to a Fortune India and SP Jain Institute of Management & Research study cited in newspaper reports.

Globally too, the situation is not very different. Only about 11% of Fortune 500 companies have a woman CEO.

But do women entrepreneurs get a better deal? Not really. A Times of India report cited a study titled: The Rs 4 Problem: Women Founders and the Market Gap Hiding in Plain Sight by Kalaari Capital, a venture capital firm run by Vani Kola.

The study found that for every Rs 100 raised by founders from India’s startup ecosystem, only about Rs 4 goes to women. The funding gap reflects a structural market inefficiency rather than a shortage of women entrepreneurs.

In other words, the system appears structurally stacked against women entrepreneurs.

Come to think of it, women in India often have to fight against the odds before they can make it big. If you come from a middle-class background, the only weapon you have against entrenched privilege is academic excellence. With the blessings of Goddess Saraswati, you can eventually win the favour of Goddess Lakshmi.

That is precisely what India-born Indra Nooyi proved. Her academic excellence—BSc, MBA and MS—saw her rise meteorically in the corporate world, eventually becoming Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo between 2006 and 2018. With no godfather backing her, she was truly self-made.

Her success has inspired millions of women in India. She demonstrated that it is possible—if you keep your head down and work relentlessly.

The story at ICICI Bank also shows what happens when institutions nurture talent. When the bank was led by N Vaghul and KV Kamath, it spotted, groomed and mentored several leaders who eventually became CEOs—incidentally, many of them women.

Little wonder ICICI Bank earned the reputation of being a “CEO factory” for women. Consider these names, each of whom became a CEO either within the bank or elsewhere: Lalita Gupte, Kalpana Morparia, Chanda Kochhar, Shikha Sharma, Renuka Ramnath, Madhabi Puri Buch, Vishaka Mulye and Zarin Daruwala.

In today’s world there are many women like Indra Nooyi who have stormed male bastions and shattered the glass ceiling. I have compiled a list of 12 achievers—most of whom have several “firsts” to their credit. They reached the top through hard work, intelligence, perseverance and commitment. Interestingly, they were all media savvy.

They include: Anu Aga (Thermax), Zeenia Lawyer (London Pilsner), Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (Biocon), Arundhati Bhattacharya (ex-SBI/Salesforce), Shobhana Bhartia (HT Media), Mallika Srinivasan (TAFE), Deena Mehta (stockbroker), Rama Bijapurkar (marketing strategist), Chanda Kochhar (ex-ICICI Bank), Kalpana Morparia (ex-ICICI Bank/JPMorgan), Zia J Mody (legal expert) and Naina Lal Kidwai (ex-HSBC).

Ultimately, optics will improve only when the statistics do. In other words, unless women are truly empowered, gender discrimination will not disappear. For that to happen, more women must occupy leadership roles across the board.

India has already mandated a 33% reservation for women in political bodies—the Lok Sabha, State Legislative Assemblies and the Delhi Assembly.

But when it comes to the corporate world, there is no such mandatory quota. The Companies Act, 2013 requires listed and large public companies to appoint at least one woman director. Meanwhile, SEBI regulations mandate that the top 1,000 listed companies by market capitalisation must have at least one independent woman director on their boards.

Both these requirements appear somewhat tokenistic.

Ideally, Corporate India should also aim for 33% representation for women across the board. That would truly move the needle.