Inclusive Growth Strategies Shaping Women Tech Leaders' Growth

By: Reena Sanghvi, Vice President, Aarti Industries

Reena is a transformative HR leader who designs and executes the enterprise-wide people strategy, propelling organizational evolution. She heads the HR Centre of Excellence, orchestrating the full spectrum of Talent, Capability, Culture, Transformation and HR Technology. She directly accelerates business growth as the Corporate HR Business Partner and champions innovation as the strategic HR partner for the R&D function.

With a distinguished career spanning over 25 years, her journey is marked by a legacy of pioneering firsts and profound impact. For the past decade, she has been a pivotal force at Aarti Industries, a chapter highlighted by her groundbreaking role as the first woman leader to be based at the Vapi plant location. This commitment to leading from the frontlines underscores her proven ability to spearhead change and forge high-performance, future-ready organizations.

With global supply chains shifting and ESG priorities evolving, how is the current chemical manufacturing talent landscape reshaping leadership readiness and cultural agility?

The industry is sailing through unique challenges—intense capacity pressures, floating demand, and supply chain complexities—compounded by evolving ESG imperatives. This confluence of factors is reshaping the global chemical manufacturing landscape, making strategic talent the ultimate differentiator for competitive advantage, particularly from an India-led base.

In response, our priority is cultivating strategic talent and leadership readiness by placing the right individuals in the right roles, building critical capabilities, fostering a strategic, purpose-led vision, powerfully declaring audacious shared goals, and mobilizing collective action to achieve them. We are building a deep bench of change-ready leaders and enhancing organizational agility to quickly adapt, reprioritize, and demonstrate resilience, guided by a rigorous understanding of external trends.

Our leaders are energized and strategically prepared to assume expanded responsibilities, unified by the Aarti Engaging Leadership (AEL) Model that serves as our guiding north star. The AEL Model defines the core resilient leadership qualities and success behaviors essential for co-creating a world-class company: the ability to collaborate effectively, communicate with power and clarity, live our values authentically, operate with strategic alignment, and maintain a natural state of decisive action. These behaviors are anchored in our three operational mantras—fit for purpose, focus and finish, and first-time right—a framework that instills agility, accountability, and execution excellence, ultimately defining our distinctive way of working. Furthermore, our strong, inclusive culture, built on our Values of Care, Integrity, and Excellence, has become a strategic advantage, fostering leadership readiness and cultural agility across functions. This is powered by deep employee involvement and an ownership mindset, aligning cross functional teams with a collective vision to stretch beyond boundaries. This unified commitment to people-centric growth and strategic clarity has enabled us to consistently surpass ambitious goals and navigate industry headwinds with desired results.

What overlooked leadership behaviors are emerging as true differentiators in capability building especially for women leaders navigating high-tech, male-dominated industrial ecosystems?

In today's competitive high-tech industrial landscape, true differentiating leadership is unequivocally fueled by mastering profound domain knowledge and technical depth. I strongly believe that potential, in-depth subject mastery, and a command of one's craft are the non-negotiable foundations of success. For any leader, this deep expertise is a critical lever to establish credibility and is most powerful when it is fused with strategic vision, acute market awareness, and a demonstrated ability to decode complex industry challenges and geopolitical shifts into actionable business strategy. Mastery in stakeholder management and the ability to collaborate effectively to drive execution are what position a leader to not merely contribute but to genuinely accelerate organizational growth.

The differentiating edge for women often emerges from how this expertise is applied. Many women leaders naturally excel with strengths such as resilience, strategic planning, adaptability, deep listening, empathy, and emotional intelligence. This capacity for a caring yet firm leadership style is a significant asset, as it creates the essential psychological safety that allows high-performing teams to innovate and excel.

However, self-awareness is equally critical.

The courage to confidently claim achievements and to unapologetically demand what they deserve are crucial behaviors that transform deep technical experts into influential and transformative leaders.

At Aarti, we have embedded this principle into our culture by ensuring a foundation of absolute psychological safety. Every employee is provided multiple platforms to communicate openly, and we are proud that our women engineers operate with complete confidence and safety on the shop floor. It is imperative to build a culture where women leaders are empowered to express themselves completely, and we have consciously ensured this environment, enabling them to fully leverage their unique strengths and drive transformative outcomes.

As org transformation intensifies, how do you sustain employee experience beyond digital dashboards particularly in decentralized manufacturing setups while nurturing psychological safety for women in operational roles?

I strongly believe employee experience extends far beyond digital dashboards, especially in decentralized manufacturing setups. Since employees spend the majority of their conscious hours at work, their holistic well-being is our foremost priority. This demands a human-centric approach that actively nurtures psychological safety, particularly for women in operational roles, ensuring they feel heard, valued, and empowered to thrive.

At Aarti, Communication is the cohesive force that unites our decentralized operations, Guided by our core leadership principle to “Listen and Speak Powerfully,” we have cultivated a “Listening Organization”—a culture where every employee, especially women in shop floor roles, is actively encouraged to voice their ideas, concerns, and challenges without hesitation.

To embed this into action, we’ve created an ecosystem which provides multiple channels for open communication. Initiatives like Khushal Varta, CXO Connects, Metamorphosis sessions, and Leadership Listening Tours ensure leaders engage directly with teams, fostering trust and deepening understanding of ground realities. These are complemented by our prestigious Voice Engagement Survey, which captures the collective sentiment of our workforce and serves as a critical input for driving both tactical improvements and long-term strategic shifts.

Platforms like Conversations, a dedicated space for monthly dialogues between team members and their managers that goes beyond performance to focus on holistic well-being, growth, and aspirations. These discussions build the psychological safety needed for innovation and ownership. It allows us to address unique challenges—such as those faced by women in operational settings—with empathy and agility, ensuring that our employee experience remains deeply human, inclusive, and empowering well beyond any digital dashboard.

Ultimately, this foundation of trust enables our holistic well-being framework, which rests on five pillars: career, physical, social, financial, and community support. For women in operations, this is a top priority.

In a sector driven by scale and precision, how can women leaders influence change management narratives bridging engineering excellence with emotional intelligence in transformation programs?

In the relentless pace of transformation, women leaders provide an essential pause—a moment of clarity and psychological safety that allows teams to breathe, refocus, and gather courage. They bring heart to strategy, ensuring that the vision for change is not just understood but felt, inspiring people to embrace learning, pursue stretch goals, and believe in their capacity to transform. This unique blend of empathy and strength creates a culture where fairness and unbiased approaches aren’t just ideals but lived principles, giving people the confidence to take risks, voice concerns, and fully contribute. By standing firmly for both the strategic vision and the people who bring it to life, they provide a vital backbone to change—infusing rigorous execution with unwavering support, and ensuring that progress never comes at the cost of humanity.

What disruptive talent practices are proving most effective in building future-fit women leaders balancing global talent demands with inclusive growth in India’s evolving industrial leadership fabric?

To build a robust pipeline of future-ready women leaders, companies are creating a powerful ecosystem of support that blends personalized growth with collective wisdom. This begins with targeted development journeys designed to consciously build strategic vision and the courage to lead, moving far beyond one-size-fits-all training. This foundation is strengthened through executive coaching that offers a confidential and thought-provoking partnership to refine leadership presence and navigate complex challenges, while structured mentorship provides guided wisdom by connecting emerging talent with seasoned leaders who offer not just advice, but active sponsorship and advocacy.

For day-to-day support and psychological safety, a buddy system pairs emerging leaders with peers, creating an immediate go-to for practical guidance and encouragement. Furthermore, organizations are facilitating senior women leader sessions and industrial expert talks to share real-world experiences and demystify success, while actively providing access to professional networking platforms to build essential visibility and social capital.

Together, these initiatives form a holistic and human-centric framework that empowers women to unlock their potential, rise with confidence, and shape the future of leadership.

What is your message to mid-career women navigating systemic inertia in the manufacturing industry especially those aspiring to lead without conforming to legacy masculine leadership archetypes?

My message to mid-career women navigating the manufacturing industry is this: Your success lies in your mindset.

The landscape of leadership is shifting, and what organizations need now is not more conformity to outdated archetypes, but authenticity, vision, and the ability to connect deeply with people and purpose.

Master your domain—expertise will always command respect - lead with courage and conviction. Bring your heart fully into your leadership—your empathy, your willingness to collaborate, and your resilience are tremendous strengths. These qualities fuel connection, inspire trust, and drive modern teams to perform at their highest potential. Forge your path by focusing on what truly matters: delivering meaningful results, taking ownership even in ambiguity, and upholding unwavering professional ethics.

The goal isn’t to fit into someone else’s mold of a leader. It’s to redefine it. Let your work speak through excellence. Let your leadership be felt through your belief in others. Let your resilience become your signature. Stand firmly in your values, invest in continuous growth, and become the obvious choice - because you bring something new, something necessary, something transformative to the table.

The future of manufacturing needs leaders who can blend operational rigor with human insight—and that’s a space where you can truly lead.