Slow Progress In Gender Parity Calls For Robust Pipeline Of Women Leaders In India: Deloitte
The percentage of board seats held by women across Indian companies is lower than the global average.
There has been a gradual increase in the number of board seats held by women across India Inc., with women holding 18.3% board seats in 2023, up from 13.8% in 2018, according to a report by Deloitte.
However, it is lower than the global average of 23.3%, which has seen an increase of 3.6% since 2022, reducing the timeline towards achieving parity by seven years—from 2045 to 2038, according to Deloitte Global Boardroom Program's 'Women in the boardroom: A global perspective' report.
This indicates that even if India were to match the global pace, achieving gender parity on boards would remain a distant goal until a robust pipeline of women leaders is developed.
Although India saw a decline in board chairs held by women in 2023, with only 4.1% of women chairing boards as compared to 4.5% in 2018, it witnessed an increase in the number of women taking up roles of chief executive offers: 5.1% female CEOs against 3.4% in 2018.
"Boardroom diversity requires a paradigm shift. Since many companies prefer to recruit board members with CEO or CFO experience, these numbers do not paint an optimistic outlook for pipeline development," Shefali Goradia, chairperson of Deloitte South Asia, said.
Deloitte Global has developed the "stretch factor", a research tool that measures the average number of board seats an individual holds in a particular market. The higher the stretch factor, the more seats are held by any single director in a given market.
The stretch factor among women in India increased to 1.32 in 2023 as compared to 1.3 in 2021, while the average stayed the same for men at 1.2. This indicates a low pipeline of women leaders and stresses the need to create a larger pool of women leaders with varied skill sets.
"Companies need to expand their skills profiles to further diversify their boards while shoring up critical skill gaps. India Inc. must break from historical patterns and prioritise capabilities over past roles," Goradia said.
"By nurturing governance expertise creatively and regularly evaluating the progress, a robust pipeline of talented women leaders can be cultivated for a brighter future in corporate governance," Goradia said.
Sectoral trends in India paint an optimistic picture for women representation across boardrooms. All the sectors examined in the survey showed an increase in the number of women on boards in 2023 as against 2018, according to the report.
Life sciences and healthcare sector topped the list with 21.3% women on company boards, followed by technology, media and telecommunications (20.5%), consumer business (19.7%), manufacturing (17.4%) and financial services (16.9%).
