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Online food delivery and restaurant discovery platform Zomato, which is preparing for an IPO in the coming months has added five independent directors on its Board of eight people-- four of whom are women. Up until now, Zomato largely had an investor-run board. With this, Zomato now has 50 per cent female representation on its board.
Aparna Popat, professional badminton player and ex-Olympian; Gunjan Tilak Raj Soni, CEO Zalora Group; Namita Gupta founder of Airveda; and Sutapa Banerjee ex-ABN Amro and ANZ Grindlays are the four women to join Zomato’s Board. The fifth independent director is Kaushik Dutta, founder of Thought Arbitrage Research Institute (TARI), a not-for-profit organisation.
“More than gender diversity, what we have always been gunning for is cognitive diversity across levels in our organisation. Evidence based research shows that a key prerequisite for innovation comes from cognitively diverse people. On that note having gender diversity on our board was a baseline, not a north star. Today, it makes me truly happy to share that each of our board members come from different occupational backgrounds bringing diverse cognitive skills and perspectives to the table” said Deepinder Goyal, co-founder and CEO, Zomato, in a blogpost on Friday.
A number of companies start with a diverse employee base at the entry-level, but it reduces significantly over time, and at senior levels. We decided to turn the paradigm on its head by introducing diversity with our Board of Directors. We’re hoping this is another small step towards building a truly lasting organizational culture where everybody belongs. And everybody thrives, he said.
Zomato has been working on strengthening its long-standing commitment to make the company more inclusive and diverse. It has done this through initiatives such as an equal parental leave policy for – men, women, same-sex, surrogate or adoptive parents, or period/menstruation leave. Or just levelling the playing field for younger professionals from diverse educational backgrounds, to have a seat at the tables that matter the most in the organisation.
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