MMA, FICCI FLO, and KAS organised a discussion on the book “Nari Shakti: Indian Women Take Centre Stage.” The panelists included N. Kumar, Chairman of the Group Corporate Board at The Sanmar Group; Pooja Sharma Goyal, Founding CEO, Udaiti Foundation; Anushka Ravishankar, Co-founder, Duckbill books; and Uma Ganesh, Founder of Global Talent Track Ltd and the GTT Foundation. The discussion was moderated by Dr. Ganesh Natarajan, Author and Founder of 5F World and Lighthouse Communities Foundation, as well as Chairman of Honeywell Automation India Ltd.
Uma Ganesh: Prime Minister Modi has been emphasising the ambitious goal of transforming India into a $5 trillion economy. This vision inspired us to reflect on the pathways required to achieve such an economic milestone. The Pune International Center (PIC), a prominent think tank, played a pivotal role in conceptualising and hosting discussions around this vision. It led to the creation of a book titled Pathways to India’s Progress, which explores strategies to achieve this goal. Ganesh, one of the book’s authors, along with contributions from several others, laid the foundation for this initiative.
As we delved deeper, we realised the critical need to examine the role of women in achieving this economic target. Drawing from my experience as an entrepreneur and corporate professional over four decades—particularly in the last decade where I’ve focused on livelihood support and skill development for youth—we observed significant insights. Our work impacts nearly 100,000 individuals annually, 70% of whom are women. These women, often from small towns and rural areas, have shown remarkable transformation when provided with opportunities. However, challenges persist, including gaps in education, livelihood options, economic freedom, and societal constraints—not just in rural areas but also in urban settings.
This led us to focus on how more women can overcome these barriers and contribute meaningfully to India’s progress. While 42% of STEM education enrolments are women, only 28% join the workforce post-graduation. In industries like IT services, where women make up nearly 50% at entry-level positions, their representation drops to 25% at supervisory levels and dwindles further to just 1% at CXO levels. Similarly, while India boasts the third-largest startup ecosystem globally, only 14% of startups are led by women, with just 5% being women-owned enterprises. These statistics highlight systemic issues that require targeted interventions.
In marginalised communities we work with, the lack of support systems is a major barrier preventing women from earning livelihoods. Confidence-building ecosystems can empower them rapidly when paired with skill development and access to resources like digital literacy and mobile phones. Even in urban areas, many women remain confined to low-paying jobs without opportunities for upward mobility.
To address these challenges comprehensively, we have emphasised three key areas: Retaining more women in the corporate workforce; supporting women entrepreneurs through networks and incubation and empowering marginalised women by building ecosystems that foster self-reliance. We hope women can play a transformative role in shaping India’s journey toward becoming a $5 trillion economy.
N Kumar: The power of women in India is obvious. We now have a woman serving as the President of the country, and in the past, India had a very influential woman as its Prime Minister. We hail from a state that had a strong and dynamic female Chief Minister. These leaders are exemplary individuals. In my own family, Nari Shakti (women’s empowerment) is seen in full blossom. Today, women excel across industries, including defence and space. Coming from a corporate background, I recognise the mandate requiring one woman director on every corporate board. However, beyond regulatory requirements by SEBI, women directors are highly valued for their exceptional performance.
Despite these advancements, many women in rural areas—and surprisingly even in urban regions—are still not given their rightful place or recognition. Therefore, I believe that sustained focus on women’s empowerment, as emphasised by the Prime Minister, is essential for India. We have a long journey ahead in this domain, underscoring the importance of Nari Shakti.
Arundhati Bhattacharya: We often talk about equality and Nari Shakti. We speak of India as a land where women have always been revered and worshipped, with Shakti representing Durga, Lakshmi, and Saraswati. Yet, there is hardly any mention of women priests in our texts. The role of a priest has traditionally been reserved for men. Having women conduct weddings has been almost unheard of. Only recently have I started seeing a few women priests, and it warms my heart to hear that marriages are performed by them.
Women empowerment is not a battle that women or men can fight alone. It is a collective struggle for society as a whole, deeply rooted in our sociocultural fabric. For instance, we often give dolls as gifts to young girls and Lego sets to boys. When I was growing up, my parents treated us equally. Yet, if my father asked for a glass of water, it was always my sister or me who would be asked to fetch it—never my brother.
A lot of people have asked me who my role model is. My mother always told me that I needed a career, not just a job. “You need an identity separate from being someone’s daughter, sister, wife, or mother,” she would say. She was extraordinary for her time. Very few families impart such lessons to their daughters, especially those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Ironically, it is often women from these backgrounds who must work because they are frequently abandoned and left to care for their children. Society, therefore, needs to foster both equity and equality.
Many of the women who work with me, including those in my home, are single mothers or have been abandoned. They shoulder the immense burden of raising children and providing for their families. What we need is a silent social revolution—one that addresses the roots of these issues, which stem not only from the roles men and women play in each other’s lives but also from the rigid sociocultural standards imposed by society.
In Scandinavian countries, when a couple has a child, the father is expected to take as much leave as the mother. This sets a precedent that child-rearing is a shared responsibility and not solely the mother’s role. However, the idea of women as primary caregivers is deeply ingrained, not only in societal norms but also in women’s own perceptions.
Four years ago, a survey in India revealed that women’s participation in the labour force was alarmingly low, even lower than that of some highly conservative Middle Eastern nations. This is likely because, although women engage in activities like planting crops or working in self-help groups, they often identify only as homemakers. They perceive working outside the home as stigmatising. This mindset, shaped by societal expectations, must change.
It is incredibly challenging for women to remain in the workforce. I recall that during my time at the State Bank of India, 33–37% of new hires were women. However, by the time they reached senior management, this number dwindled to as low as 4%. Even in Salesforce, where I work now, which is more supportive of women, this percentage has only risen to around 12%. Women often drop out of the workforce because of the expectations to prioritise caregiving responsibilities.
Men, on the other hand, are conditioned from childhood to prioritise work over family. Boys are discouraged from crying in public and are encouraged to take on tasks outside the home, such as shopping or driving. Society has rigidly assigned roles for men and women, and we continue to raise our children with these same notions. If this persists, achieving gender parity will remain a distant dream, even with flexible work hours and hybrid workplaces.
We must do everything possible to bring balance to society. A McKinsey study suggests that achieving gender parity could take more than 100 years. Who can wait that long? Whether at home or in the workplace, balanced representation is essential. Balance is at the heart of the concept of nirvana—it is neither excessive joy nor grief. Achieving gender balance is crucial for unlocking the true potential of our society and our nation.
Panel Discussion
Ganesh Natarajan: I want to start from where Arundhati left off. I’ll share the example of my daughter, who is now a cancer scientist at Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York. She married an Englishman, whom she met in Cambridge, UK. One concession she made to me, as a proud Indian father, was the freedom to organise the wedding as grandly as I wanted, in the style and city of my choice. We chose Jaipur.
My daughter was very clear that according to Vedic rites, there was no mention of God; the focus was entirely on responsibilities. There was no concept of kanyadaan. Listening to her arguments, our regular family priest declined to perform the wedding. Instead, we found an amazing group of priests called Jnana Prabodhini. Two women priests travelled to Jaipur and conducted the ceremony. My 89-year-old uncle was so impressed that he gave them a certificate, remarking that they were fantastic and that he learned a lot from them. Eika Chaturvedi Banerjee, who was the CEO of the Future Group, didn’t grow up as a priest. However, her deep interest in mythology and passion for her work led her to become one. She now balances her roles as a corporate professional and a priest, driven by her passion.
In SBI, Arundhati Bhattacharya’s policies are still remembered. Once employees become Chief General Managers, they begin wearing suits. The boardroom temperature was always kept at 20–21 degrees Celsius because the men wore suits. However, for Arundhati, wearing a saree, it was too cold. She insisted the temperature be adjusted to 24 degrees, which was a practical move for our country, as excessive air conditioning leads to energy wastage.
Pooja Sharma Goyal: I began my career as an engineer, working in the Bay Area for many years with Adobe. Over different stages of life, I was involved in three startups. My first startup, an enterprise software company in the Bay Area, raised significant funding but failed during the 2001 meltdown. My second startup, Intellitots, focussed on early years education and care in India. My batchmate from IIT Delhi and I built it over nine years, after which it was acquired by Clay. My third venture, Avishkar, is a platform designed to help children learn robotics, AI, and coding. We’ve established about 2,500 labs in schools across India and 15 other countries.
Looking back, I see the entrepreneurial journey as akin to playing a game. It is important to not only understand the game but also know why you are playing it. In some ways, entrepreneurship has become synonymous with fundraising and high-growth venture capital funding. For my first company, we raised a lot of capital. However, by the time I started my second, I had two children and had just moved back to India. I didn’t want to take money from investors. We built the company to be sustainably profitable, achieving positive PAT and EBITDA, and eventually sold it. Yet, for those nine years, I barely identified myself as an entrepreneur because we hadn’t raised funding.
I consider myself largely gender-blind, but over the last decade, as I watched my two daughters grow up and mentored other entrepreneurs and business leaders, I began to see the systemic barriers faced by women entrepreneurs. These include limited access to networks, capital, and even the expectations they and others place on themselves.
Anushka Ravishankar: I began my career in software, but at some point, I realised there weren’t enough books for children written by Indian authors. Most children grew up reading books from the West, and there was a definite gap in the market. I didn’t initially think about starting a company, but I began writing books for children and working in publishing. I worked with Tara Publishing and later moved on to Scholastic India in Gurgaon. Big corporate publishing houses primarily focus on the bottom line. Scholastic, for example, imported many books from America—books that were often unwanted there—and dumped them in India. These books didn’t resonate with the Indian market. Unfortunately, Indian parents tend to seek activity and educational books rather than other genres.
My colleague, who was the publishing director, and I worked together at Scholastic. Many years later, we both started contemplating our next steps. We felt the timing was right and launched Duckbill. We decided not to publish books for very young children, as many publishers were already catering to that audience. Instead, we focussed on books for older children. We also avoided mythology and folk tales since the market was saturated with them. We identified a niche and began creating books for it. Initially, Duckbill was part of a larger publishing house, but later, we bought our shares and went independent. It was a small, lean company, but we took great pride in the books we produced. I believe we changed the landscape of children’s publishing in India by introducing genre books. We discovered new authors and had an exciting time.
However, when GST was implemented, our prices increased, and we could not avail the benefit of input tax credit. This made it difficult to sustain the business. Eventually, we received an attractive offer from Penguin and decided to accept it. Penguin agreed to retain the Duckbill imprint, and my colleague continues to run it. We didn’t see ourselves as entrepreneurs but rather as writers and editors passionate about creating quality books. I still continue to write books for children.
Uma Ganesh: I was very happy during the first 25-odd years of my career. I was the CEO of Zee TV Education, where we worked on numerous initiatives—on TV, off TV, and in the field. However, I felt the need for a channel for personal intellectual stimulation. That’s when I decided to enrol as an external student, and IIT Bombay accepted us as PhD candidates. I also motivated Ganesh to join the PhD program.
One day, my guide called and advised me to spend at least a day on campus. I decided to quit my job and move to IIT, and everyone was surprised. That was when I realised that neither the power of a network nor the ability to make money motivates me. What truly drives me is the ability to make a meaningful difference in people’s lives. Over the course of more than a decade, it has been incredibly heartening to have had the opportunity to nurture the leaders of tomorrow.
Through our foundation, our mission is to find people who are passionate, eager to learn, and joyful in their pursuits. Witnessing their success and being able to create that magic together are the true sources of my happiness.
Pooja Sharma Goyal: There are several challenges on the demand side that need to be addressed, including hiring, retention, advancement, returning to work, and infrastructure. Tamil Nadu, in fact, is one of the leading states in women’s workforce participation. Forty-two percent of women in manufacturing in India are in Tamil Nadu, and 90% of the workforce in electronics manufacturing in the state comprises women. This is largely because Tamil Nadu has established structural mechanisms, such as working women’s hostels.
While a man can travel 30 kilometres to work on a bike, a woman often needs a job within a one-kilometre radius of her residence. Either the job comes to the woman, or the woman goes to the job. To enable this, we must provide safe accommodation, affordable mobility options, and childcare services. As a nation, significant work is required to develop and enhance this infrastructure.
Another key aspect is family support. Beyond a certain monetary threshold, family members often volunteer to assist women. Importantly, if a woman manages to stay in her job for one or two years, her trajectory typically takes off, and she experiences much faster growth.
