The Week That Was: Women Advancing Startups, Finance, and Aviation

By: WE staff | Saturday, 14 March 2026

Women leaders are bringing in the new wave of change by voicing bold perspectives and unlocking new pathways for growth. Owing to women’s dynamic role in the growing economic progress, the entrepreneurial ecosystem witness’s many novel benchmarks that create new avenues for inclusion and growth.

In the current volatile and high-impact industries, such as the technology, aviation, and banking sectors, women entrepreneurs have broken the status quo by offering a new form of leadership, as exemplified by their ability to exhibit resiliency, flexibility, and a future-oriented perspective. This new form of leadership is also being witnessed and celebrated in the business world, as exemplified by the Most Admired Women Awards (MAW) 2026, which recognizes women HR professionals for their ability to shape the future of work.

Building on this wave of progress, Women Entrepreneurs Review Magazine brings together this week’s stories highlighting women who chart new pathways to inspire the next generation of leaders.

Women-Led Tech Startups Grow Across India: Tracxn Report

India’s women-led technology startup ecosystem is growing rapidly, with more than 8,000 ventures that have raised nearly $23 billion in funding together. This represents 14.8% of India’s total technology funding. In 2024 alone, women-founded startups secured approximately $930 million through 136 deals which produced 94% year-on-year growth according to the Indian Startup Funding Report. The fintech sector maintains its status as the most popular field for women entrepreneurs who now pursue opportunities in AI, cloud infrastructure, healthtech, enterprise technology, ecommerce, and cleantech to develop new technologies. The leaders, Priyanka Aeron and Kusum Dhanda promote three core values which include innovation and data-driven decision-making and domestic technology infrastructure development.

DBS Bank India Launches Latest Report in 'Women & Finance' Series

DBS Bank India has published the latest report in its Women & Finance series, in association with research partner Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India LLP. The report is based on a survey of 1,342 women in North, South, East, and West India, covering female entrepreneurs, High Net Worth (HNW) women, and rural women earners. The report is an extension of the “Women & Finance”report published in 2024 and emphasizes the increasing financial independence of women. Around 69% of female entrepreneurs are primary financial decision-makers compared with 60% of rural women earners and 58% of HNW women. Women in cities place importance on banks with global networks, whereas women entrepreneurs require peer group advisory (44%), sectoral mentoring (40%), and investor connections (33%). The most financial confident group is rural women earners (76%).

VentureNest Hosts PRERNA 2.0 Conclave for International Women's Day

VentureNest organized PRERNA 2.0, the International Women’s day event at CGC University Mohali where leadership and resilience of women and their achievements were celebrated. The event was a gathering of leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators and policy-makers to discuss the issue of women empowerment. The programme has included key note talks, panel discussion, and networking and “Scale Her Pitch,” which enabled women entrepreneurs to pitch their business plans to investors. Some of the main talks involved “Catalysing Women-Led Growth through Policy, Capital and Collaboration” and “From the Boardroom to the Breakthrough.” A Leadership Roundtable evaluated the way various sectors were to collaborate, but policies such as “FoundHER Fireside Chat: Crore Dreams and Shark Tank Deals” and “Pink Policy Dialogue: Towards an Equal World,” showed how to enhance entrepreneurship by implementing policy measures.

India Has Over 11,000 Pilots, Including 1,871 Women: Govt

As of today, there are about 11,394 pilots that are employed by big domestic carriers in India of which nearly 1,900 pilots are women according to the statistics that Murlidhar Mohol presented in Lok Sabha. IndiGo has the largest number of pilots with 5,200 pilots (of which, 970 are women). Air India has 3,023 pilots, 508 women. The Air India express has 1,820 pilots, 234 of them being women. Akasa Air has 761 pilots, 76 of them are women. Spice jet has 324 pilots of which 58 are women. Alliance Air has 115 pilots (25 women). IndiGo, Air India express, and Alliance Air are operating with foreign pilots. IndiGo has 29 foreign pilots with Air India Express 48 pilots. Alliance Air has 15 pilots. The pilot to per aircraft ratio is 9.4 in SpiceJet and 6 in Alliance Air. They include the idea put forward by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation that the foreign airlines will be subjected to more stringent rules, including the necessity to be registered digitally, the consequences of failure to fulfill the established requirements, the greater responsibility of local representatives, and the system of addressing complaints related to passengers.

AdvantageClub.ai Unveils Winners of Most Admired Women Awards 2026

AdvantageClub.ai has announced the winners of the Most Admired Women Awards (MAW) 2026, recognizing 100 outstanding women HR leaders driving transformation in workplaces globally. The MAW Awards which operate in their fourth year honor HR professionals who develop the future work environment through their creative human resources solutions and leadership abilities. The 2026 edition received more than 500 nominations from regions including the US, India, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Europe. An all-women jury evaluated the winners which included Liza Haskell, Mahira Al Raisi, Nerissa Carbonell Berba, Vasumathi Parthasarathy, and Smiti Bhatt Deorah. Awards were presented across four categories—Leaders, Pioneers, Achievers, and Champions—honoring HR professionals who create inclusive workplaces through their innovative people-centered working environment solutions.

India Enters FIH WC Qualifiers Final vs England

India women field hockey national team won a 1-0 match over Italy women field hockey national team in the semifinal of the FIH Women hockey world cup qualifiers and reached the final against England women field hockey national team. The final, clinching goal was a penalty-corner goal by midfielder Manisha Chauhan, in the 40^th minute. India was dominant with numerous attacking opportunities with a couple of efforts by Navneet Kaur and Salima Tete, yet Italy held back. Goalkeeper Bichu Devi Kharibam played a vital part in saving the potential push by Italy to get an equaliser, including a late penalty corner in the 59th minute. India was already qualified in the 2026 Women world cup, which will be held in Netherlands and Belgium between August 15 to 30.