Women lead India ops of top IT MNCs
Silicon Valley is often criticized as being a boys' club. Men
dominate the software industry , and hold most leading positions.
The Indian software industry cannot completely avoid that tag. But
here, women constitute a higher proportion of the technology workforce than in
the Valley , and, extraordinarily, almost all of the biggest IT multinationals
in India now have a woman at the helm.
Accenture on Friday elevated Rekha Menon as its India chairman,
and she will lead a workforce of over 1 lakh people, a third of Accenture's
global strength. Menon joins a league that already has Vanitha Narayanan, MD of
IBM India, Neelam Dhawan, MD of HP India, Aruna Jayanthi, CEO of Capgemini
India, Kumud Srinivasan, president of Intel India, and Kirthiga Reddy, MD of
Facebook India.
Narayanan and Jayanthi too lead companies that have over a lakh
employees. Dhawan leads a firm estimated, by IT publication DataQuest, to have
$6 billion revenue.
Biocon CMD Kiran Mazumdar Shaw said she was glad to see MNCs
repose such confidence in Indian women professionals. “I welcome Rekha to this
exclusive league of women chairpersons in India. I wish Indian companies would
recognize women in leadership roles the same way ,“ she said.
Archana Garodia Gupta, president of the FICCI Ladies Organization,
noted that women broke the CEO barrier first in the banking sector. “Once women
like Chanda Kochhar (ICICI Bank) and Naina Lal Kidwai (HSBC India) became heads
of banks, the mental barrier that people had about the capability of women crum
bled. Women are now being appointed not as figure heads, but because of their
capability as business leaders. My batch in IIM-Ahmedabad earlier had just 10%
women. Now it's 30%.This will give more women the option to try and make it to
the top,“ she said.
Such transitions do not happen naturally . Venkat Shastry ,
partner in executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles, said leadership outcomes
such as this are a result of longstrategic investments companies like Accenture
make in promoting innovation in leadership and management practices.
Capgemini's Jayanthi said it's not so much about being an MNC or
being Indian, but rather about how global, open and merit-based the culture of
the organization is. “Perhaps MNCs are used to seeing women leaders in their
international network, and accept them quite naturally , whereas in other
companies it might require a very strong internal change management. There are
several Indian organizations too with women in the corner office,“ she said.
Work-from-home options, initiatives to encourage women to return
to work after breaks (like for having a child), mentorship programmes and
hiring policies that identify less-represented segments are some of the
instruments used to strengthen diversity .
Sucharita Eashwar, MD for India at WEConnect International, an
organization that promotes women entrepre neurship, said Accenture was a
pioneer in gender inclusion in both employee and supply chain policies and
practices.
Intel recently doubled to $4,000 the bonus for any employee
referring a woman, a veteran or a minority candidate for a job in the company
.Intel's chief diversity officer Rosalind Hudnell told TOI recently that the
company last year started a home-to-office programme in India that encourages
women who left the profession to come back as interns for six months and see if
they fit in. “We were happy with the way they came to speed. We'll see if we can
adopt this in other parts of the world,“ she said.
(With inputs from Shalina Pillai)
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Suit John, Shilpa Phadnis &
Avik Das
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TOI8AUG15
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