Where are our Women?

For a moment, let’s talk about this Old Economy family-held corporation. At

a press conference, a journalist enquired of the single lady on the board–"Madam,

what exactly is your contribution to this company?" The lady replied coolly–"Directors

number three to eight!"

Amusing this old nugget might be, but that was the only way by which women

became CEOs–family or family money. This was the reality worldwide and not an

Indian phenomenon. Even now, in the US, only 11% of the senior executive

positions amongst the Fortune 500 companies are manned (!!) by women. And only

2% of the boardroom members are women. But wasn’t the IT industry different?

Wasn’t this an industry where people didn’t care about the gender? Where

equal opportunity was given and encouraged?

Going through all the entries that flooded into Dataquest’s offices for the

Top 20 series, it was startling to discover that there were next to no women

CEOs on our list… and this in an industry where women are supposed to stand

shoulder to shoulder with the men. What is it that keeps Indian women from

making it to the top rung of authority in the country’s IT sector? Or is it

the IT sector that has not recognized and rewarded women well enough for their

efforts? Or will maturity only come with age and experience, and it is because

of the industry’s nascent youth that women are yet to reach the top rung? Or

is there a glass ceiling and despite whatever is said, it is not really a level

playing field as far as women are concerned?

The glass ceiling is a term for barriers to advancement that exist but may

not be seen, ie they are invisible or transparent, like glass. The barriers are

covert rather than overt, to do with attitude or unwritten practices rather than

written policy. They include things like excluding women from meetings where key

decisions are made, or not providing mentors or connections within the

organization, or subtly sabotaging or undervaluing women’s contributions,

ignoring ideas that could lead to advancement, nominating inferior men for

promotions, etc. None of these practices are found in written company policies,

but are commonplace behind the scenes… and these practices are difficult, if

not impossible, to break through. Hence, ‘glass ceiling’.

Let’s look at the West. Most of the strides that women have made in the

boardrooms have been in the last decade. Carly Fiorina stands out as a shining

example, heading Hewlett-Packard thereby becoming the first woman to make it to

the Fortune 50 list. Then there’s BusinessWeek excerpting the achievements of

former stripper and now music industry adversary Courtney Love, clubbing her in

the coveted e.biz 25 list.

What do we have to show amongst the Top 200 IT companies? My good friend

Lynette Saldanha of Datacraft RPG was on the list till last year, till she moved

to Datacraft New Zealand. Then there are Ruth Connelly at SAP India and Padma

Ravichandran at H-P ISO–apparently, MNCs are open to placing women in the top

seats. But what of entrepreneurship? There are none except for Kirti Lakhotia,

upon whom the responsibility of handling LCC Infotech fell after her husband’s

sudden death. A total of three out of 200 CEOs in this year’s Top 200

reiterates that the IT sector has been discriminatory in placing women in the

top slot.

Obviously, it is only a matter of time before women find their deserved

positions in the knowledge-centric IT industry. But when will this happen? When

will we find the glass ceiling being done away with so that women are the boss?

And it’s not that women aren’t the boss. All men would certainly argue

otherwise, as this nugget illustrates:

One CEO felt that he wasn’t getting enough respect. He, therefore, put up a

small sign that read: "I’m the Boss!" He then taped it to his office

door. Later that day, when he returned from lunch, he found that someone had

taped a note to the sign that said: "Your wife called, she wants her sign

back!"

Pradeep Gupta is managing director of Cyber Media

and publisher of Dataquest

and other CMIL publications