There has been a big shift in corporate India in the last decade where a growing number of women have not just become part of a diverse range of industries but have also risen to positions of influence, said Abanti Sankaranarayanan, Chief Strategy & Corporate Affairs Officer at Diageo India.

She was delivering the Raghu Pillai Memorial Lecture, organised by Coaching Foundation India (CFI) and the Madras Management Association (MMA), as a part of a national conclave on “Women in leadership- future perspectives”, on Friday.

Sankaranarayanan, who was part of Tata Group’s elite Tata Administrative Services (TAS) for 17 years joined Diageo India in 2010. She has played a pivotal role in transforming Diageo’s stature and strategic direction in the country. On Friday, she was sharing some of the emerging perspectives from the corporate world as well as from her personal experience.

‘Women in corporate India and leadership positions are now coming into popular public discourse, which is a subject that carries a lot of attention,” Sankaranarayanan said, adding, "There is a lot of thinking in boardrooms of progressive companies on how to strengthen the leadership pipeline among women.”

However, she also added that while there is a shift in the corporate India mindset, there is still a lot to do. “The direction of travel is right, but we need to keep going at it.”

Highlighting research studies on women participation in the workforce, Sankaranarayanan said that the ‘leaky bucket syndrome’ is still there in corporate India where participation of women spills down from 43 per cent in the case of tertiary-educated graduate to 25 per cent at entry-level professions to just 4 per cent at senior management levels.

“Even women board members are just about 11%. While there is a Companies Act guideline, which requires at least one woman as a director in listed companies, there are companies which still don’t have even that one person in their boards,” she added.

Highlighting the need for entities like CFI to coach and motivate women in the workforce, Sankaranarayanan a cited recent study to show that 79 per cent of women regularly lack confidence at work.

“Juggling work-life balance, lack of visible internal opportunities and confidence in their own ability are the top three major obstacles faced by women,” she said citing the study.

Sankaranarayanan suggested several measures such as keeping diversity at the heart of every business decision, making diversity a visible business priority for the CEO and the executive leadership and having a gender and diversity target among others.

She also said that Diageo - which is the world’s largest alcohol beverage company - has three women in the 8-member executive committee in India, 10 women out of 28 in the next-level of leadership. Women constitute 18 per cent of the total workforce in Diageo India, nearly doubling their proportion in the last four years.

“If it can be done in an alcohol beverage company, it can be done anywhere,” she added.

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