Are GCCs quietly redrawing the leadership map for women in India?

Ambition is not the problem holding women back in corporate India. 

The Women Leadership Survey 2026 by the All India Management Association and KPMG in India shows 79 percent of women professionals aspire to hold leadership roles, yet barely 1 percent currently occupy board-level positions. The study also highlights a crucial inflection point: 65 percent of respondents identify the mid-career stage as the time when women are most likely to leave the workforce, often just when leadership trajectories begin to accelerate.

Also read: Lonza to set up India global capability centre

Yet within India’s rapidly expanding Global Capability Centres (GCCs), a different leadership story may be taking shape, one that is quietly widening the pipeline of women leaders. Over the past decade, multinational companies have increasingly placed women at the helm of their India-based capability centres, expanding the pool of visible role models while bringing diverse perspectives into global decision-making.

Also read: India, GCC sign Joint Statement to kick off detailed FTA talks, as trade hits $178.56 bn in FY25

Industry estimates suggest that more than 1,100 women have taken on global leadership roles within India’s GCC ecosystem over the past five years, signalling a structural shift. 

Structural Factors Driving Women’s Leadership in GCCs

For Anuprita Bhattacharya, Head of Merck IT Centre (MITC) and IT Country Head India, the rise of women leaders in GCCs is closely tied to how these organisations are structured.

“The rise of women leading GCCs in India is not incidental; it is embedded in the model’s structural design,” Bhattacharya says. GCCs operate within global, matrixed governance frameworks that prioritise enterprise-wide outcomes rather than local hierarchies. This reduces reliance on legacy networks and enables merit-based advancement.

Direct reporting lines to global headquarters also increase executive visibility and strengthen sponsorship. “Performance in GCCs is measured through outcome-driven metrics centred on innovation, transformation and value creation,” she explains, adding that this rewards impact rather than tenure.

A similar view is echoed by Mrinal Duggal, Head of the Sanofi Global Hub in Hyderabad, who notes that GCCs actively nurture leadership pipelines.

“We actively identify and nurture high-potential women early in their careers, giving them clear pathways to leadership roles,” Duggal says. She believes the GCC model blends global thinking with local talent, creating environments where leaders are evaluated based on the impact they create rather than assumptions tied to gender.

Global reporting lines also bring progressive workplace policies into play. According to Duggal, initiatives such as gender-neutral parental leave, rigorous pay equity analyses and zero-tolerance discrimination policies help create a more equitable foundation for leadership growth.

How Global Exposure Builds Leadership Confidence

Operating at the intersection of global stakeholders, regulatory complexity and large-scale transformation mandates, GCC leaders often gain exposure that accelerates leadership maturity. “The GCC ecosystem operates at a demanding crossroads of global stakeholder alignment, regulatory complexity and enterprise-scale transformation,” Bhattacharya says.

This environment fast-tracks leadership evolution beyond operational management into enterprise strategy, innovation stewardship and people-centric leadership. Reflecting on her own journey, Bhattacharya recalls a pivotal moment when her centre transitioned from being viewed primarily as an execution arm to being recognised as a capability hub. She led a strategic push to strengthen capabilities in regulated delivery, data and analytics, automation and service resilience. “The turning point was when global leadership began looking to India to set standards for other geographies,” she says.

For Duggal, global visibility is one of the most empowering aspects of working in a GCC.

“As women, we get to build relationships and showcase our capabilities to executives across different regions and functions,” she says. “That global visibility has been a game changer.”

Leadership development programs, international mobility opportunities and international assignments have also broadened access to experiences that were once limited. “The opportunities that were once primarily available to men are now accessible to all of us,” she adds.

The Mindset and Skills Needed to Lead GCCs at Scale

Leading a GCC at scale demands both a fundamental mindset shift and intentional capability building. “Women aspiring to lead GCCs must move beyond a functional lens and adopt an enterprise-wide perspective,” Bhattacharya explains. Leadership today involves shaping global strategy, steering innovation agendas and influencing cross-border stakeholders.

“The shift is from operator to business architect,” she says, emphasising the need for business acumen, stakeholder influence, risk governance and the ability to lead diverse teams through complex transformation.

Executive presence is equally important. Leaders must have the confidence to engage global boards, offer constructive challenge and articulate impact in clear business terms.

Duggal describes a similar shift in her own journey.

“The biggest mindset shift is moving from being an expert in one area to becoming someone who can connect the dots across the enterprise,” she says. This requires developing what she calls ‘global confidence’ — the ability to influence across cultures and geographies.

The principle that has anchored her leadership journey, she says, is continuous learning. “When your leadership is built on genuine competence, continuous growth and consistently delivering value, confidence becomes a natural byproduct.”

How Inclusive Are GCC Leadership Environments

While GCCs are often viewed as more progressive workplaces, leaders acknowledge that the journey toward equitable leadership is still ongoing.

“In intent, policy design and leadership metrics, GCCs are ahead of traditional services sectors in fostering more inclusive workplaces,” Bhattacharya says. However, she cautions that structural gaps remain, particularly around mid-career progression, access to accelerator programs and exposure to P&L roles. Stronger sponsorship frameworks, flexible career pathways and better access to global opportunities will be crucial to sustaining leadership momentum, she adds.

While women already make up around 40 percent of the GCC workforce, ensuring that this diversity translates into equitable representation at senior levels remains an ongoing effort, Duggal says. “The pipeline is strong, but we need to keep nurturing it all the way to the top.”

The Mid-Career Challenge Still Persists

The broader corporate landscape continues to grapple with structural barriers. The mid-career stage remains one of the most critical pressure points, where competing demands related to caregiving, work–life balance and organisational expectations intersect with leadership ambitions.

Importantly, the Women Leadership Survey suggests that women rarely leave because their ambitions fade. Instead, exits often stem from accumulated organisational frictions, role design constraints and uneven support during critical career transitions.

For organisations, the message is clear: diversity must move beyond symbolic commitments and become embedded in structures, policies and leadership pipelines.

Evidence consistently shows that gender-balanced leadership strengthens organisational outcomes, yet progress remains incremental. The Women Leadership Survey 2026 notes that while 23 percent of organisations last year had 30–50 percent women in leadership roles, the figure has edged up only marginally to 24 percent this year, even as the share exceeding that threshold has dipped slightly.

As India’s GCC ecosystem grows in scale and strategic influence, it could offer an important blueprint for corporate India, showing how global governance, merit-based evaluation and deliberate talent pipelines can translate women’s leadership ambitions into real executive roles.