The company of six was appointed to access the situation
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Explanation:
Regulatory push has made it mandatory for companies to have at least one independent woman director on boards. While most of the top 1,000 listed companies have complied with the directive from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), bo...
The boards of directors of Indian companies are possibly one of the last bastions of male domination in the country’s business landscape. Directors often deferred to the most powerful man in the corporate boardroom and coteries could easily shut down dissenting voices. Women board members, who were mostly relatives of the powers that be, usually remained silent. This institution, however, has now been shaken up.
Regulatory push has made it mandatory for companies to have at least one independent woman director on boards. While most of the top 1,000 listed companies have complied with the directive from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), boards still have a long way to go before they become more inclusive. Self-made billionaire and founderchairman of Biocon, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, recounts her experience of being a board member of a company that was dealing with a sexual harassment complaint lodged by an employee.
The men on the board, she says, described the complaint as “silly”, “rubbish” or “an exaggeration”. Mazumdar-Shaw says it took her, a woman director, to object to this “flippant” approach, put her foot Men often show an “authoritarian” attitude and a “command and control” approach in situations that need a little “consultative reach-out” for resolution, Mazumdar-Shaw says. Many senior women directors echo her views, and add that walking into a boardroom as the sole woman independent director can be intimidating, especially if the men have been on the board for many years and may have socialised together. And then there are overt signals.
A senior woman director who is on multiple boards say some Indian boards often have one or two members who do not take women seriously. These people make their attitude apparent by walking out, looking away or scanning their phones when a woman director starts to speak.