More Women Are Joining Corporate Boards But Very Few Get The Corner Office

By: WE Staff | Monday, 8 June 2020

Women’s share in boards of Nifty-500 firms has tripled to 15 percent over the past six years but a majority of firms have just one woman on their board.

Every Women’s Day (8 March), companies of all hues and stripes run campaigns showcasing their commitment to gender equality. Some also get chocolates and flowers for women employees. But when it comes to appointing women to senior management positions, most companies fail to walk the talk, shows a Mint analysis of gender data across top listed firms.

Across Nifty-500 firms, only 15% of board members were women in 2019, data sourced from NSE Infobase shows. Among CEOs, less than 5% were women. The Nifty-500 index is a rough proxy for listed firms across the country, as it accounts for roughly 96% of free float market capitalization on the National Stock Exchange (NSE).

It is worth noting that even the share of women directors was a lowly 5% at the end of fiscal 2013. But then a gender quota introduced in the new Companies Act forced listed and large companies to appoint more women on boards. The share of women directors has tripled after the law came into force in 2014.

Yet, a majority of firms have not cared to go beyond the mandated requirement. 60% of the Nifty-500 firms had just that one woman on board that the law mandates as of fiscal 2019.

31% had two women on their boards. Only 5% had three women. And only eleven companies, or 2.2% of the Nifty-500 firms, had more than three women on board.

As of fiscal 2019, not a single Nifty-500 firm had more women than men on their board, the NSE Infobase data shows.

Only three firms had equal representation: Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd (5 men and 5 women directors), Crisil Ltd (4 men, 4 women), and Vinati Organics Ltd (3 men, 3 women). Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the managing directors in all three firms are women. Apollo is run by the Reddy sisters, Crisil by Ashu Suyash, and Vinati Organics by Vinati Saraf Mutreja. Crisil though has one woman less on its board now, after Martina Cheung resigned last year.

Ten firms did not have a single woman director at the end of fiscal 2019 but eight of them have a woman director now, according to the latest information on their website. Two of them, Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) and UCO Bank still don’t have any woman on their boards according to their websites.

Sectors such as healthcare, telecom, consumer goods, and construction have a relatively larger share of women directors, the data shows. Mining, metals, banking and finance have a relatively smaller share of women directors.

Across sectors, few make it to the corner office. When it comes to positions such as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), or the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), the gender gap is yawningly large.