Dressed to Skill
From liquor to construction to aviation, women are
earning their stripes in sectors perceived to be cosy male bastions
When Aparna Batra, former marketing head, India,
for liquor firm William Grant & Sons took up the assignment in 2008, she
was used to eyebrows being raised because of her gender. “I had moved to
alcobeverages from the lifestyle sector and was usually nattily turned out in
skirts and boots even when visiting vendors' warehouses. I re member one of our
large distributors sizing me up and announcing that I wouldn't last in the job
for even 21 days,“ Batra, now an independent brand consultant, recollects.
Batra lasted in that job for six and a half
years in an industry that's perceived to be male dominated, and in a company
whose product -single malt Scotch whisky -is targeted largely at male
consumers. The cynicism associated with Batra's appointment in 2001 may also
have to do with the dodgy deals and slippery characters that thrive in the
shadows of the liquor ecosystem.
Batra may no longer be a part of the hurly burly
of the alcohol ic beverages (alcobev) industry, but there are other women who
are calling the shots at various liquor companies. There's Shweta Jain, who
recently joined as India marketing director at William Grant, Pushpanjali
Banerji, brand director at premium alcobev maker Kyndal, and -the most high
profile of them all -Abanti Sankaranarayanan, managing director of Diageo India
since 2012. Sankaranaryanan was recently brought on board to head the luxury
brands of United Spirits Ltd, which is now controlled by Diageo.
“Spirits as a category in India is actually a
lot more populated with women now than it was even five years back I myself
work in a company where a lady (Stella David) is the global CEO and steering us
to many innovations,“ says Jain.
Stereotypes doubtless persist -Banerjee lets on
that “I have been asked to leave some bars as my being there was not considered
safe“ -but that won't deter women from entering this consumer-facing business.
“I have had women marketing, legal and HR directors. Our head of
communications, Scotch & Reserve marketing, compliance and information
systems heads are all women,“ says Sankaranarayanan. Liquor is just one of a
smattering of traditionally-male dominated sectors in which an increasing
number of women are finding their calling. From cement and construction to
automotive and auto ancillaries, women are earning their stripes in industries
that till yesterday were unlikely to attract top-flight female talent for
leadership roles.
Part of the reason for this shift is the high
intensity of the war for talent.“Many companies are becoming increasingly
conscious of gender diversity as a means of finding a talent pipeline of
potential leaders by encouraging flexible work schedules, improved parental
leave policies, and opportunities for women to rejoin the workplace after short
interruptions,“ says executive search consultant Achyut Menon.
Many of these women may be more visible faces
today, but it isn't as if they've just ambled into their sectors. Consider
Neerja Bhatia, a veteran of 20 years in aviation who is now general manager of
Etihad Airways in India. “The aviation industry which was male dominated till
recently is now seeing women making their mark by becoming pilots, captains and
even CEOs,“ she says. French industrial giant Lafarge, which specialises in
cement, construction aggregates and concrete, has many women in senior
leadership roles globally, and is aiming to have 35% of senior management
positions held by women by 2020. Lafarge Brazil, for instance, has 99 women
(from just 28 six years ago) in such positions, constituting a little over a
fifth of its total workforce. On the parent company's 10 member executive
committee, two are women Sonia Artinian, executive VP (organisation and human
resources); and Alexandra Rocca, executive VP (communications, public affairs
and sustainable development).
In India Lafarge has three women in leadership
roles: Lo pamudra Sengupta, VP, north and east operations and aggregates
business; Supriya Samant, AVP, purchase and purchasing business partner of the
ready-mix concrete business; and Munmun Dandona, AVP, business development, key
accounts management.
Sengupta, a civil engineer who started her
career in the construction industry, is used to facing scepticism and being
asked `you are a lady, can you do this man's job?' But she asserts that “being
a woman has never come in the way of me being able to perform.“
Like Sengupta, Dandona too faced the tough task
of convincing people that women could become site engineers after she finished
college with a civil engineering degree in 1993. “There was this preconception
that women do not have the managerial skills to deal with labour, civil contractors
and execute construction projects,“ she says. However, after starting with
mundane site jobs and working extra hard to be taken seriously, she was
eventually recruited as the first lady civil engineer in CemIndia (now ITD
Cementation) in 1994.
Samant, who has been with Lafarge since the
company entered India in the late '90s, was part of the core team that was
assigned the responsibility to establish and grow the crucial ready-mix
concrete segment. “I found the job exciting and challenging, since it was a
fast growing industry with both ends of the supply chain being male dominated,“
she says.
If cement and ready-mix concrete seem like
unlikely environs for women executives, how about a company that makes heavy,
medium and light commercial vehicles, buses, vehicles for defence and
paramilitary, and cars and utility vehicles? Well, as head of marketing
communication and services of the passenger vehicles (PV) unit, Delna Avari
doesn't have to think too much about the trucks and buses; her responsibility is
the brand and positioning strategy of the PV portfolio that comprises 14
brands, including the new Bolt and Zest and the indigenous powertrain called
Revotron.
Avari, who joined the Tatas' leadership
programme TAS (formerly Tata Administrative Services) in 2001, believes women
have to deliver 10 times as much as men to get the same base respect. “Women
start with the bias that they are not intellectually as capable as men to
understand engineering domains. Failure and mistakes get amplified much more than
for male peers.“
But then, as she gleefully points out, so do the
successes. “I believe staying the course in spite of odds and continuing to
believe in what you stand for and bring to the table is the toughest part
mentally,“ Avari told ET Magazine. Besides the fact that the Tata group has a
culture that em powers women leaders, Avari also feels that she benefitted a
great deal from spending seven of her 13 years at Tata Motors in Europe, UK and
South East Asia.
The
Family Businesswomen
Meantime, family-owned businesses too are
welcoming the next-gen women into their businesses. But it's no walk in the
park for the new entrants, as Harshbeena Sahney Zaveri, 55, will testify. When
she came back to India from college in the US and joined NRB Bearings, she didn't
enjoy any advantage just because her father was one of the promoters.“It is a
professionally run company and being from the promoter family is a
disadvantage,“ she explains. It was only when she took charge of the company's
foray into design engineering and research & development -which enabled NRB
to become a supplier to the likes of Volvo, Ingersoll Rand, ZF, Mercedes and
Audi -that the board started taking her seriously, appointing her president in
2001.
Today besides appointing a woman CFO at NRB
Bearings, Zaveri also spends a lot of time mentoring young women at Ashoka
University, where she is one of the founders.
Like Zaveri, Shradha Suri Marwah, managing
director, Subros, joined the company, which is a JV of the Suri family group
with Japanese majors Denso and Suzuki, as a man agement trainee in 2001. “I
came into business thick skinned, head down and ready to work. Now when I look
back, I am glad I had that attitude,“ she recollects. Vinnie Mehta, director
general at the Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India, points
out that the typical image of an auto components company as one of “foundries
and furnaces and not exactly a place for women employees“ is changing.
At a few family businesses, women are forced to
step in because of unforeseen circumstances. That's what happened to Anasuya
Gupta, 54, chairman and managing director of family-owned construction
chemicals firm CICO Technologies.She took over after the untimely death of her
husband Amit Gupta.As Gupta points out, the challenges for her were multiple in
her quest to save the brand that has been around since 1930.
“My background was of a homemaker from a
conservative family; also the company was facing various legal and financial issues,“
she remembers. But Gupta, whose educational background is one of liberal arts,
rose to the challenge and instead of selling out to CICO's overseas partner as
she was being pushed to do, turned around the company.
Gupta has learnt the ropes the hard way, making
regular visits to factories at Gurgaon, Haridwar, Kolkata, Chennai and Kasna,
in addition to distributors across the country. “I have to travel to factories
in small towns, some of which don't even have washroom facilities for women,“
says Gupta, who chooses to wear only sarees when she's at work. Clearly though
she believes women can get the job done. Which is why she's hired them in
senior positions in human resources, finance and marketing.
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Ishani Duttagupta
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ETM10MAY15
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