- Women remain underrepresented in top management positions in India's consumer firms
- Competition for high-level executive talent is on the rise in the industry
- The research identifies both growing demand for CEOs and profound gender disparities at the top
Women remain underrepresented in leadership positions in India's fast-expanding consumer sector, even as competition for top executive talent heats up, says WalkWater Talent Advisors in a recent report.
The survey was taken at a point when India is expected to emerge as the world's third-largest consumer market by 2026, underlining the swelling need for chief executive officers (CEOs) and also the continuing gender disparity at the top.
The study reviewed 317 CEO profiles in India's consumer sectors—FMCG, retail and textiles, hospitality and QSR, consumer durables and electronics, and D2C/education/services—and discovered that a mere 6.9 percent (22 out of 317) were women.
Half of these 22 women CEOs were promoted from within, and 50 percent head companies in retail and textiles, a sector perceived to be more woman-friendly. These observations highlight both industry-specific routes and structural impediments reducing the availability of executive roles for women.
WalkWater highlighted that corporate boards must have "targeted strategies" in order to develop inclusive leadership pipelines.
The report highlighted that without conscious structural changes, improvement in gender diversity at the executive level will likely be sluggish despite India's consumer economy growing at a fast rate.
The study also explored functional origins that fuel success in India's consumer C-suites. The most prevalent were sales and marketing, representing 63 percent of all CEOs, highlighting the importance of market savvy, brand savvy, and customer focus.
In QSR and hospitality, 47 percent are operations CEOs, whereas in services and D2C, 45 percent are finance and strategy-oriented leaders.
Rahul Shah, Director and Co-founder at WalkWater Talent Advisors, said that although traditional streams like sales/marketing exposure backed by engineering and MBA continue to be significant, boards must also adopt agility, digital literacy, and varied functional backgrounds to future-proof an organization.
The report identified a mobile and competitive leadership market where nearly a third of consumer CEOs have made job changes in the last three years. Of these transitions, 57 percent were to Indian companies and half or so were to small, fast-growing companies, reflecting the attraction of nimble workplaces to aggressive executives looking for quick career advancement.
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