The Stepping Stones: Skills & Risks

Poornima Subramanian, CFO at Reliance Nippon Life Insurance, deep dives into the skills and risks that will help women accelerate their careers:

Manoj Agrawal: What skills have you seen having the most impact in accelerating careers for women?

Poornima Subramanian: Companies have goal-setting processes, competitive reviews and strength assessments and financial projections and finally tools and resources for strategizing business. These are a lot of tools to help accelerate careers. But as a woman, and mother of three sons, with a 25-year career from manufacturing to financial services and a CFO today, my experience has taught me that while companies may have various tools, what will really help to make maximum impact is to address culture as a priority for the business to accelerate progress. While encouraging women to lean in and raise their hands higher might help, one must place equal focus on employers to take action and fix the problem.

What can employers do?

Learning and development opportunities can have a firsthand impact. A consultancy firm supporting women at workplace said: "Work intensely with your hiring and promoting managers to negate the internal dialogues that may prohibit women from advancing such as, 'she just got married,' or 'she's going to have a baby soon, so let's invest in someone else.

Create an inclusive culture which emphasizes integrity and collaboration and encourages everyone to achieve their potential, while supporting others along the way. Mentorship programs can help.

What can women themselves do?