No wonder! Women blast through global tech’s glass ceiling in India

Google’s appointment of Preeti Lobana as the head of its Indian operations last week topped a fast-growing trend of women executives taking charge at technology corporations across the country. A slew of women leaders — from Salesforce India chief Arundhati Bhattacharya, who was recently elevated as the head of its Asean region, to Sandhya Devanathan who helms Meta’s India business — are among those reversing the long-held narrative of gender disparity at the highest echelons of the industry.This elevation of women to leadership positions at global technology firms in recent years has grown rapidly since the initial postings of Irina Ghose as managing director of Microsoft India, Sindhu Gangadharan taking charge as managing director of SAP Labs India, Jaya Jagadish designated as country head of AMD as well as Prativa Mohapatra becoming managing director of Adobe India.

For Bhattacharya, the foray to becoming a technology leader marks a second innings after a successful banking career where she retired as the chairman of India’s largest state lender State Bank of India (SBI). Others to have also gained the top spot include Daisy Chittilapilly, president of Cisco’s India and SAARC operations as well as Swapna Bapat, managing director and vice president, India & SAARC, Palo Alto Networks.

“Global companies want to make a statement about attracting the best talent while also making no bones about having a woman at the top positions,” said business and brand-strategy specialist Harish Bijoor.

This is in sharp contrast to the trend at Indian IT majors that have few women in top leadership roles.

GCC play

The global capability centre (GCC) boom in India too has also helped women to assume leadership positions.Be it Lalitha Indrakanti, CEO at Jaguar Land Rover Technology Gangapriya Chakraverti, MD at Ford Global Business Services, Eva James, VP at Renault Nissan Technology & Business Centre India or Mamatha Madireddy, MD of HSBC Global Service Centres – these are just a few examples of the women who spearhead operations on the tech side of some of the most well known global brands.

About 25% of the women employed in the technology sector are in GCCs and the figure is expected to rise to 27% by 2027, industry data shows.

Kumar Rajagopalan, vice president at staffing firm Dexian said that while the trend of appointing women to leadership positions is noteworthy, it cannot stop there.

“Where India falls short of the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives of the West is when it comes to creating an ecosystem around the leader. Oftentimes, when a woman is made the boss for the sake of DEI, executives can get insecure and do not cooperate, making it a hostile environment for the woman to work in. Having an ecosystem to support the female leaders is critical for the success of such initiatives so that women leaders can take bold calls and decisions confidently and independently,” he said.

Recruitment firm Teamlease estimates that the overall percentage of Female Work Participation Rate (FWPR) in tech increased by 9.1% between 2022 and 2023. The firm added that it expects a steady growth of 8-9% in the next two years.

This underscores the importance of creating “intersectional representation and transformational leadership,” according to Munira Loliwala, VP at Teamlease Digital.

Despite the roster of women leaders at technology firms, they still account for just about 14.5% of top roles in GCCs, industry data reveals.

This is even more pronounced at Indian IT majors that have few women in leadership positions. Barring Roshni Nadar-Malhotra who is a promoter and the chairperson of HCL Technologies, none of the other top IT services firms like Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro, or Tech Mahindra have ever had women CEOs.

However, IT services have more representation at the executive level with 8% women in such roles versus 6.7% in GCCs, as per Teamlease.

The staffing firm said that with the rise in overall employability and India’s demand to offshore talent to the rest of the world, more STEM graduates are expected to contribute to the rising number of women in tech joining the workforce.

However, more needs to be done to reverse the trend of roughly 51% of working women in the tech sector exiting the workforce by the age of 30-35. While another 52% at mid-level do the same due to family issues, gender bias, pay-gap, and lack of women-led teams.