Where Are The She-Eos?

The thin presence of women in India's top echelons of management has its roots in the abysmal gender diversity in the country's B-schools. Things have moved in the past decade, but not enough

- PRERNA LIDHOO

FOR NIHARIKA SAXENA, a one-year executive MBA student at IIM Ahmedabad, the course’s rigorous curriculum and transformative approach to learning is proving instrumental in shaping her critical thinking and problem-solving abilities. For women students like her, even a one-year management course from one of the premier institutes in India creates massive opportunities. “Individuals from various backgrounds such as law, army and medicine have come together here to create a rich tapestry of perspective, and the curriculum is designed to challenge and stretch the students’ intellectual boundaries. It pushes us to think critically and analyse complex management problems from various angles, and turns us into active problem solvers, ready to tackle any challenge,” she says.

But there’s a hitch. The number of top women leaders in corporate India is appallingly low. A recent report by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has revealed that women hold only 14 per cent of the top executive positions in India’s Top 500 companies by market capitalisation. Considering that women make up almost half of India’s population of 1.4 billion, this figure is startlingly low. Further, the scarcity of women executives within big corporates stems from the marginal share of women students in most top Indian business schools and corporate training programmes. This under-representation, experts point out, raises crucial questions about the systemic barriers that hinder women’s entry into business education and their subsequent ascension to leadership roles.