Q: Do You Need To Claim Your Space At Work?

A: Bazaar contributors share their experiences...

- Humra Afroz Khan

According to recent research published in Catalyst, the proportion of women in ‘senior management’ roles, globally, has grown to 29 percent in 2019-20—the highest ever. While this is encouraging news, the fact is that women continue to be grossly under-represented in the upper rungs of the corporate ladder, with numbers tapering the higher you ascend. The statistics hit harder, closer home. As reported in The CS Gender 3000 in 2019, India has the third-lowest global representation of women managers in all of Asia Pacific. And in 2019, women held only nine percent of business management roles in the country, with just two percent as CEOs.

Shelly Kapoor Collins, for one, is aware of the challenges that many female leaders face. She has worked in the tech industry—also contributed to Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign and served as Vice-Chair for Hillary Clinton’s Women in Public Service Project. She is now the founding partner of Shatter Fund, which invests in tech companies led by women. “There’s a stark disparity between women’s and men’s access to leadership positions, whether it’s on the boards of companies, in the C-Suite, or moving up the structure,” she reveals.