India is deficient by over 26,000 independent directors and around 2,500 women directors to fill the boards of companies with the new Companies Act 2013 coming into effect from this fiscal.

Despite a handful of high-profile female Indian entrepreneurs, the proportion of female directors is a meagre 5.2 per cent, which is even below the developing world’s percentage of 7.2 per cent, J S Ahluwalia, President of the Institute of Directors (IOD), has said.

To fill this gap, IOD is conducting training programmes nationwide to equip entrepreneurs and management professionals with skills such as planning, delegating and appraising that matches the needs of Indian corporates in the international business scenario.

Ahluwalia, who was here to address a three-day Master Class for Directors for women directors in association with CII-Kerala, said IOD, through its programmes and conferences, is determined to transform boardrooms to make them equitable and responsible, both socially and environmentally.

According to him, the standards of corporate governance have changed vastly due to the migration of public value. Mere compliance with statutory provisions alone is no longer an overriding business driver; many other factors such as transparency, equity participation, accountability, integrity and CSR play an important role in business domains, particularly with the advent of the knowledge economy.

While business environments today provide a multitude of new challenges on the one side, they also provide significant opportunities for those who can master its dynamics. Businesses will have to grapple with new concepts of values that move beyond a focus purely on profits to incorporate non-financial metrics. Induction of a new breed of independent directors with competencies in innovation, sustainability and CSR would change the facets of corporate governance, he added.

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