While female KMPs in the financial services sector were all professional leaders, in pharma, they were promoters, according to data from FY23 collated for ET by executive search firm EMA Partners India.
However, Indian companies continue to struggle to have a better gender balance when it comes to KMPs. According to the Companies Act, KMPs are the CEOs or managing directors, chief financial officers, company secretaries and wholetime directors.
The top 200 BSE-listed companies had a total of 447 KMPs in FY2023. Among them, 28 (6.26%) were women: 12 professionals and 16 promoters. The total count of female KMPs earning a million dollars or more in annual compensation was seven, the data revealed.
Pharmaceuticals had half a dozen women in KMP roles, one more than in financial services. The hospitals/medical segment came in next, with four female KMPs.
Getting More KMPs: The Roadmap
Explaining the numbers, K Sudarshan, managing director-India and regional chair-Asia at EMA Partners said: “The numbers reflect a broader trend on the representation of women in the upper layers of management across sectors. However, most boards are seized of the matter and there is a sense of urgency visible today to encourage diversity across. It will call for concerted efforts from all stakeholders over the next two decades for the balance to be restored.”For example, in certain sectors like manufacturing, there is a need to address the issue right at the grassroots from the supply side. In sectors such as technology and software services, it is more about channelling resources appropriately to ensure representation at the top.
Workplace flexibility will be another factor which will positively impact the emergence of female leaders, Sudarshan said. “Today, organisations are positively inclined to provide that, and this will ensure that career mortality of women will be limited, especially during the most vulnerable phases in their careers.”
According to Radhika Gupta, MD and CEO at Edelweiss Mutual Fund, real gender equality means empowering women to lead. Starting out, women should actively look for chances, aim for challenging roles, and get guidance at different points in their lives for more achievements.
“We need to rethink how workplaces work and make them more fair. To fix this, support hiring based on skills, provide mentorship at different stages, and help women to scale up in their careers,” Gupta said.
Vinita Bali, an independent director and former MD at Britannia, makes a case for legislating and mandating initiatives around women.
“Somehow, India follows things when they are legislated and made mandatory, like in the case of women directors. This also has to be mandated. Otherwise, very little action is happening voluntarily,” Bali said.
“It’s all very well to say that DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) is important but on the ground, there’s hardly been any progress. It’s mostly about tokenism and not real action. The boards and chairman and CEO have to be held accountable. Look at the top 10 companies by market value and see how underrepresented women are,” Bali said.
