One in five board members at India Inc is now a woman
After 10 years of the enforcement of Companies Act 2013 that made it mandatory for companies to have at least one woman director on their boards, one in every five board members on average in Nifty-500 companies is a woman.
As per the leading data analytics company Prime Database, Five years ago, one in eight directors was a woman, and ten years ago, the proportion was one among twenty members.
Though there is progress made in enhancing gender equity at the board level, the glass is both half full and half empty. The legal mandate has ensured that almost all the 500 companies have a woman director on their boards, but it has also defined the presence of women on Indian boards. In total, 223 (or 45%) of the Nifty-500 companies have only one woman director, in compliance with the law.
Globally, one in three directors on the boards of S&P 500 companies is a woman. But this is not due to law mandating women on board but on the back of pressure from investors and efforts by the companies towards having gender diversity at the board level.
In India, there are 22 companies among the Nifty-500 that have women representation in their board at 40% and above. Incidentally, several of these companies have women chairpersons or CEOs. For instance, Colgate Palmolive, Godrej Consumer Products, Jyothy Labs, Vinati Organics, Apollo Hospitals, Sundram Fasteners and New India Assurance.
