25 most powerful women in Indian business

Last week Business Today (March,12 2006) came up with the special edition on “The 25 most powerful women in Indian business”. 25 brief profiles of successful business women are featured in the issue.

Business Today has done a great job in celebrating achievements of women managers. The whole overtone of the initiative emphasizes normality of “woman-in-top management” scenario. The profiles of heroines are not heart-rending stories of the hardships they had to face on the way to the top, but rather sober accounts of their professional achievements. The authors make the point clear: stop staring – women are not rare animals in male corporate habitat. You’d better look how they perform. They are managers on the first place and should be assessed according to their professional status rather than gender.

The average “powerful women” got younger these days. She is 42.67 y.o. in comparison with her 46.84 y.o. counterpart in 2004-2005 and 48.80 y.o. counterpart in 2003-2004. This tendency gives hope as it is always more pleasant to join the crowd of powerful in your early 40s rather than at time you are close to 50s. 44% of Power 25 work in Finance/Banking (same number last year), 12% in Heath Sciences and Media/Entertainment each. These indicators, however, might have nothing to do with the ominance of women in the respective sectors. If women taking up senior managerial positions in those industries have higher chances for being recognized as powerful, that does not mean it is easier for women to climb up the corporate ladders there.

Interestingly enough, in the same issue of Business Today along with the Power 25 ranking one finds the material on the supportive wives of powerful men (the shadow sovereigns). Business Today goes on that as follows,

“…you, the male CEO with a large corporation to run, are powerful because the person behind you has not just helped create an environment where your powers can bloom, but has actually contributed to its potency”.

In my opinion, this kind of article would be unlikely to appear in many other countries striving for gender equality. Woman as a supplement to man? Is it what you are saying? Here in India (and some other countries too) this state of affairs is legitimate … and!!! not necessarily discriminative for women. Business Today continues:

“they (those women) are not just the alter ego of their powerful husbands, but also accomplished women in their own rights, women with vision, courage, ambition and energy”.

Why do not those women themselves pursue the careers of the scope competitive to that of their husbands? Is it severe gender discrimination that holds them back? I wonder if the women themselves would raise their eye- brows when approached with such a question. Could it be it is natural for them to carry on this way – influencing, but never claiming their leadership aloud? Could it be it is a part of Indian femininity? Could it be Indian women are not as powerless as they appear to Western observers coming up with their own metrics to access Hindu societal norms? Still, the very existence of the article in Business Today demonstrates that public actually knows and recognizes the shadow sovereigns. However much the latter want to keep their profile low.

Whenever reading about successful women I get proud of those. Undoubtedly, they deserve respect – those women who made it to the top notwithstanding the double burden of work and household duties, male dominance in the corporate habitat and self-limiting thinking. It is basically a pleasure to observe self-confident people, who are professional and enthusiastic about what they are doing. Materials on successful women inspire those still on the way: essentially, we do not meet any of Power 25 in the streets, therefore media coverage becomes a crucial source providing us with role models of successful businesswomen. You read and keep thinking: If they have done it, why would not I be able to?

Do not get too excited, though… Have a closer look at gender-insensitive picture. Female Power 25 is good, but what about Power 25 as such? In December 2005 The Economic times made a ranking Most Influential Global Indians where only 1 of the 10 nominees appears to be female. Make a search in Google for admired, powerful, successful businessmen and CEO in India and you’d get handsome results with almost all-male content.

Business Today completed a small scale survey (100 companies sampled with 43% response rate). In turned out that among the companies responded women take up 7.48 % positions in senior management (median). With scarce information regarding the companies sampled it is difficult to establish validity of these findings.

What about the nation-wide statistics? Not much to compare with - in fact data in women in management (any level) in India is virtually non-existent. Koshal, Koshal and Gupta (2005) in their research refer to a figure of 2 women taking administrative and managerial positions per 100 economically active men in India. 2% figure is also found in somewhat outdated research by Neft, N., & Levine, A. D. (1997). www.indianngos.com reports the figure of less than 3% without quoting the source.

Therefore, an apparent controversy emerges. According to the general discourse maintained by media and general public, Indian women enter corporate world at a constantly increasing rate and there are plenty of opportunities awaiting them there. Yet, statistics shows somewhat different picture.

In this light, the Power 25 initiative by Business Today being undoubtedly encouraging should not appear misleading. Powerful women should be recognized, but how many of them at power?