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Journalism of Courage
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From left: Vinita Jain of Biotique, Anu Aga of Thermax, Ravina Raj Kohli of Star TV, Anil Ambani, Chanda Kochar of ICICI Bank, Sulajja Firodia of Kinetic Engineering, Naina Lal Kidwai of HSBC
and Anita Goyal of Jet Airways |
Some 17 years ago, as Nehru Irani walked into the office of Associated Breweries and Distilleries ABD with her daughters Bakhtawar and Zinia after the death of her husband Nosher, the whispers followed them all the way: What did three women so fond of scuba diving, golf and the race course know about marketing beer? 8216;8216;The company will collapse,8217;8217; predicted some.
8216;8216;The company did not collapse like they said. It has lasted all these years,8217;8217; Zinia told The Sunday Express. One cannot miss the twinkle in the eye of the former CEO, present director ABD and tough-talking ex-officio president of the All India Breweries Association. 8216;8216;Typically, people said beer was such a male-dominated product but we three women did a better job than any man could have. Men have it a lot easier! They just leave home every morning and expect the wife to manage everything.8217;8217;
There8217;s more. A recent 100-corporation study by the Association of Management Development Institutions in South Asia and Cosmode Management Research Centre predicts an eight per cent growth in senior management positions held by women in the next five years. An average of 4 of 10 CEOs said that they considered the advancement of women as critical to the organisation.
That8217;s the good news. On the other hand, women account for barely 25 per cent of seats in management schools today. Some estimates suggest that only three per cent of Indian women hold senior management positions. An index put out by Humanscapeindia.net says that three-quarters of Indian women CEOs believe they have to work much harder than male CEOs to prove themselves.
Few women CEOs are ready to admit that the equation still does not balance, but industrialist Anil Ambani said it for them at a felicitation on Friday in Mumbai. 8216;8216;Women in corporate India have to combat a Ladies Prevention Raj,8217;8217; he said.
Anita Goyal, vice-president, marketing and sales, Jet Airways, is one of the few women to agree instantly with Ambani. 8216;8216;Consider bureaucracy, it doesn8217;t like to deal with women and doesn8217;t accept women as CEOs,8217;8217; she told The Sunday Express. 8216;8216;Corporate colleagues feel threatened if women climb up. There8217;s no other reason why a woman can8217;t be CEO. We still haven8217;t been able to overcome men8217;s perception of women as the weaker sex. Indian corporates continue to label women as homemakers.8217;8217;
In a private conversation with The Sunday Express, Sulajja Firodia Motwani, joint MD, Kinetic Engineering, insisted that the gender debate was not focused on the corporate work culture. 8216;8216;If you8217;re capable, work culture does not prevent you from climbing up,8217;8217; she said. But later, at a public discussion on the issue, she modified her stance to say, 8216;8216;Many capable women just give up because there are few structures to support them as CEO.8217;8217;
For the ones who stick it out, though, the rewards more than make up. In 1978, Rohita Doshi flew to the Case Western University, Cleveland, to study computer engineering. 8216;8216;Those days, nobody, not even the IITs, offered a degree in the subject,8217;8217; she says. 8216;8216;I had never seen a PC, but I had read about it.8217;8217; She went on to become one of the first Indian girls to work in Silicon Valley with Hewlett Packard and, two decades later, launched soulkurry.com, India8217;s first women8217;s portal, with a current base of 60,000 users.
The portal survived the dotcom bust, but that was not the lone headache Doshi had to face. 8216;8216;There is pressure on a woman, whether she has a regular job or is an entrepreneur8230; unless she has the safety net of family support. Even if you have support, most inhabitants of the corporate world don8217;t really believe that and it becomes an issue,8217;8217; she says.
Zeba Mitha Kohli, MD, Good Housekeeping think Fantasie chocolates and Lindt, however, prefers to ignore the home-and-husband vs career-hot-seat cliches. 8216;8216;I might work in a family business, but I started at the bottom of the ladder at 18. There was no bed of roses,8217;8217; she says. 8216;8216;I am not a housewife, but I work just as hard at laying out a wonderful meal for my husband once a week, if not everyday.8217;8217; There8217;s even a creche in her office, and her daughters Carina 8 and Sophia 6 scurry in and out of press conferences and policy meetings at her New Marine Lines office every Saturday.
The major bias, says Shirin Batliwala, VP, business and development with the Taj Group, comes from the old school of thought. 8216;8216;The tough part was getting them to listen to us, the first batch of trained and younger recruits,8217;8217; says Shirin, who joined Taj as trainee, F038;B, in 1970, when women were automatically assigned housekeeping duties.
So far as 8216;trespassing8217; into male bastions are concerned, Preeti Sinha could be said to have been there, done that and written the book. After 10 years on Wall Street 8212; a career that began as an intern with J P Morgan at the age of 19, and internship with the World Bank at 21 8212; Preeti has returned to India as associate director strategic initiatives and global network development at Rabo India Finance. But she is under no illusions about the progress of the Indian corporate woman. 8216;8216;Hardly 20-30 per cent of Indian women are in banking,8217;8217; she points out. 8216;8216;I don8217;t think they are focused on being full-time careerwomen.8217;8217;
The reason, according to Jaya Arunachalam, president of the Working Women8217;s Forum of India, Chennai, 8216;8216;is that corporate women are not getting the best deal. They face a bias even if they come up the hard way. Why, even at home, children think it8217;s great if dad goes to office, but mum must sit at home.8217;8217;
Carefully choosing her words, Komal Chhabria Wazir, executive director, Shaw Wallace, told The Sunday Express, 8216;8216;One cannot turn a blind eye to the current work place reality where there is a predominance of men at the top, whether it is the government, the legislature or business. Success at work directly stems from one8217;s capacity to prioritise and balance correctly. But as a woman professional still operates against a traditional backdrop, this is especially challenging though not impossible.8217;8217;
Zinia is honest enough to concede that meeting the challenge successfully extracts a price. 8216;8216;Probably you can8217;t manage it all8230; husband, children, home, office. Somewhere down the line something suffers. Today women are juggling it better than ever before but, over the years, my children have grown up knowing that mummy is mostly in the office.8217;8217;
