Women are still not on board in Indian companies

In the four-and-a-half months since the Sebi board meeting in February this year, 91 women have been appointed to 97 directorship positions in 94 companies (as of 30th June 2014).

An extensive report by leading law firm Khaitan & Co in association with Biz Divas, a national network of professional women titled Women on Boards: a Policy, Process and Implementation Roadmap found that among the 1,470 public listed companies, the number of women directors on board were 350, representing only 4 per cent of the total number of independent directors on board.

The report explores the case of gender diversity in corporate boardrooms in India and recommends how this can be achieved.

The report found one fifth of the world’s 200 largest companies have no women directors and that India is the first among the developing nations that has made representations of women on company boards mandatory.

It cites the instance of Norway that has witnessed women representation in boards shoot up from 7 per cent (2003) to 41 per cent (2013) and suggests that the Norway’s implementation was made successful by posing serious penalty for non-compliance as grave as dissolution.

Other countries that have not implemented penalties have seen far less results.

The largest economies, the US, China and Japan which have no quotas for women in boardrooms, had the lowest growth of women on boards, suggesting that unless pushed, change does not occur, the report said.

Haigreve Khaitan, managing partner, Khaitan & Co said, “If organisations wish to remain competitive, they need to optimally utilise their human resources and ensuring adequate representation of women across their boards will be a significant step in this direction.”