Women in senior positions: India
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Company directors
2015
The Times of India, Aug 29 2015
Market regulator SEBI in April 2014 mandated that every listed Indian organization should have at exclusive least one woman director on board. Global executive search firm EMA Partners conducted a study to map women directors in the top 200 companies. Of the 2,048 directorships available, 217--or 11% -of board memberships are occupied by women. Of these, 50% are in senior management roles and 36% are civil servants.
Diverse boards outperform male-only by US$14 billion
The Times of India, Oct 14 2015
Diverse boards in India outperform male-only peers by US$14 billion
Indian companies with diverse executive boards outperform peers run by allmale boards according to new research from Grant Thornton.The study titled 'Women in business:the value of diversity' study, which covers listed companies in India,UK and US,estimates the opportunity cost for companies with male-only executive boards (in terms of lower returns on assets) at a staggering US$655 billion in 2014,where India's share is US$ 14 billion.
KEY FINDINGS: In the US,S&P 500 companies with diverse boards outperformed rivals by 1.91%.In the UK FTSE 350,the gap was 0.53% and for the Indian CNX 200,0.85%.This translates into an opportunity cost of US$567bn,US$74bn and US$14bn in each of the three markets respectively or around 3% of GDP in the UK and US; In the UK and US,the impact of moving to mixed boards on the S&P 500 and FTSE 350 could boost GDP by around 3%. The research shows a significant opportunity cost associated with male-only boards:US$655bn for 1,050 companies across the three markets.
RECOMMENDATIONS: Companies: You need to go further and move beyond female participation at a non-executive level.Diversity in decisionmaking boosts performance; Investors:You need to put pressure on companies to diversify their boards at an executive level.There are proven performance benefits. Governments: At a time when productivity is falling,mixed executive teams are generating greater returns from their assets.
Gender diversity laws
2015: Most companies implement gender diversity law
The Times of India, Jan 23 2016
Swati Deshpande
`Women still small part of cos' boards'
A historic gender diversity law did get women onto the boards of nearly 90% Indian companies listed on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), but experts say the spirit of the reform is yet to see the light of day . Only 147 of the 1,451 NSE-listed companies did not comply with the law on April 1, 2015 -the day the mandate to bring at least one woman onto their boards came into force. But the NSE Centre for Excellence in Corporate Governance, in its last report on gender diversity on boards, said the data showed “the unflattering reality that even after the deadline for complying with the woman-director mandate, women still constituted a very small part of the board make-up.“
According to the report's authors N Balasubramanian and Nirmal Mohanty , there is no doubt that the mandate issued by Sebi prompted a spurt in appointments in 2014-15 with 762 women directors and 895 women directorships.
The compliance was also delayed till the last minute by many . Most of the compliant companies in India have only one woman director on board, and she is usually not an independent director, said Afra Afsharipour, a UC Davis law professor. She is in Mumbai for an initiative called the Directors' Collective.
The report says there is a clear paucity of potential independent woman directors. The highest compliance is in Europe with Norway heading the world with 35.5% representation of women on their boards. “But the mindset of companies being an `old boys' club' is slowly changing,“ said Nick Sutcliffe, Asia-Pacific chief of The Conference Board, a not-for-profit group set up in the US to help businesses with best board practices.
Senior positions
2016, India and the world: An Egon Zehnder report
Namrata Singh, India lags in board gender diversity, Feb 25, 2017: The Times of India
India lags behind Asian markets like China and Hong Kong on certain board gender diversity parameters, despite the best of efforts to bring more women on boards of companies. An Egon Zehnder (EZ) report for 2016 -exclusive to TOI -reveals that India's numbers are lower when it comes to new women board member appointments, women executive directors and women CFOs.
In 2016, new women board member appointments in India stood at 11% of total hires in 2016, as against 14.5% for new male directors. This is lower than the global overall average of 17% women. In other Asian markets like Hong Kong and Malaysia, the same was 16.4% and 27.3%, respectively .
While the compulsion of maintaining one woman director on every listed company board could have helped more women get board positions, the EZ report shows that not many women directors in India have management responsibilities.
Pallavi Kathuria, co-leader of diversity and inclusion practice at EZ, said, “Despite social and economic progress in other areas of the business world, diversity at the leaders hip level, particularly in the boardroom, has not kept pace. Data from the global board diversity analysis and EZ's experiences have shown that, as women start making their voice heard and encourage the de velopment of other women leaders, it is likely that companies will continue increasing female presence on boards.“
Falguni Nayar, founder & CEO, Nykaa, who is on the boards of a few companies in India, said, “To get to where they want to be, women need to lean in. We need to develop abilities to be able to take on the dual responsibilities of career and home. In most cases, this involves increasing risk appetite and pushing oneself forward.“
Nayar said men are comfortable with being on several boards, while women were more conservative in making themselves available for such positions. “However, while the average age of a board would be 55-plus, we are seeing several younger women coming on boards. The attitude is certainly changing,“ said Nayar.
According to the EZ report, India was better than China and Hong Kong on the number of women CEOs. Among CFOs, however, India is far behind at 5.1% of women as CFOs.
See also
Women in senior corporate positions: India
