Women gradually taking top spots in Indian start-ups, but gap in tech-driven roles still a challenge

The last few years have seen greater number of women taking up top roles in companies. Women are switching jobs, shifting cities, or going abroad to pursue career-related opportunities, and even starting their ventures. While a wave of change can be seen at the macro level, a similar scenario can be seen within the start-up ecosystem.

Data released by executive search and talent advisory firm LONGHOUSE Consulting revealed the movement of women happening across different top positions in start-ups. 

Aparna Kuppuswamy, who was previously with SBI Cards, joined fintech major BharatPe as a Chief Risk Officer in February this year. BharatPe has seen a string of new appointments post-Ashneer Grover's ouster from the company in 2022. Another appointment has been that of Smriti Handa. Handa was a Global Talent Acquisition Director at British multinational company Reckitt and joined BharatPe as Chief Human Resource Officer last April.  

Myleeta AgaWilliams, who is the Founder of media company AnkiMedia, joined edtech platform upGrad as the Chief Executive Officer of International in August 2022. 

The data by LONGHOUSE revealed that the maximum appointments have happened across positions in the Human Resources department.  

Bhumika Srivastava, Santwana Periwal, Santana Ramakrishnan, Kavita Azad, Samata Ballal, and Rishu Garg have taken on the position of Chief Human Resources Officer at start-ups such as Polygon Technologies, Clix Capital, Dealshare, CollegeDekho, Bweakoof.com, and DeHaat, respectively. 

Where is the gap?

While the gender gap in India is gradually decreasing, it continues to remain incredibly low. Anshuman Das, CEO of Longhouse Consulting, said, “Although start-ups have traditionally attracted great talent, their inclusion of diverse talent remains low, often only ranging from single to early double digits percentage share of the workforce. However, with the growth of diversity and inclusion in higher education and tech-education enrolments, this is expected to increase two to threefold within the next five years. To achieve this growth, startups must create complementary policies that are welcoming to women.” 

Das also pointed out that start-ups have a limited view because of funding constraints and a lack of resources. However, to build gender and diversity-inclusive organisations, they need to have a “long-term vision.” 

Das noted that women’s inclusion towards roles such as human resources and marketing is more compared to fields such as engineering. “Women's enrolment in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics) fields is generally low, with most opting for medical or MBA programs in HR, marketing, and finance. Out of five professions, including finance, marketing, HR, medical, and engineering, women tend to have the lowest participation in engineering and the highest in HR and medical courses.” 

This may present a problem to the start-up ecosystem, which is tech-driven or has specific job requirements that are technical in nature. “However, with the increasing enrolment of women in educational institutions across various courses, there is hope for a 2-3x increase in diverse talent in startups within the next five years. Nonetheless, startups must go the extra mile and create policies that are friendly to women to accelerate this growth rate and realise medium to long-term benefits,” Das concluded. 

Indian start-ups apart, the last few years have also seen an uptick in Indian women taking on top roles in tech behemoths across the world. Mamta Singh became the Principal Group Engineering Manager at tech giant Microsoft in June last year. 

Madhumitha Venkataraman, who founded Diversity Dialogues, became the head of Inclusion and Diversity at Netflix in July 2022. Several other appointments of Indian women professionals have happened across diverse roles in companies such as Airtel, Colgate Palmolive, PayU, Tata Digital, Netflix, and others.