From New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern, Ethiopia’s Sahle-Work Zewde and most recently Slovakia’s Zuzana Caputova – nations today are steadily accepting women in the leader's role. Jacinda Ardern, in the aftermath of the Christchurch attacks exhibited an empathetic side of leadership, a resolute and reasoned style that can be an effective tool of governance, from parliaments to the boardrooms.

Encouraging greater participation of women in the workforce has yielded tremendous results for countries across the world. Nordic countries like Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland routinely rank among the world’s top 5 nations for gender equality and have some of the highest workforce participation rates for women. This has boosted their GDP by 10 to 20 %. According to IMF Chief Christine Lagarde, India’s GDP can “grow by 27% if the women are brought to the same level of men in terms of economic and workforce participation”. Research suggests that a firm’s financial performance and productivity improves considerably with gender-equal workplaces and corporate boards. Women possess a unique skill set - empathy, verbal agility and greater risk awareness; valuable traits that will be essential for succeeding in the 21st-century global workplace. 

With a plethora of research backing women participation in the workforce, what is required to make these figures a reality? How can organisation structures and policies be designed to encourage more women in senior leadership positions? How can societal norms be addressed?

Join us as we explore ways to promote gender equality in Indian workplaces with Ameera Shah, Managing Director, Metropolis Healthcare Ltd, Kerry Sain, Executive Managing Director, 13D Global Strategy & Research, Ravinder Kaur, Professor of Sociology, IIT Delhi, Animesh Kumar, Chief People Officer, Zee Entertainment Enterprise Ltd and Monica Ralli, Chief Marketing Officer, 13D Global Strategy & Research as moderator. 

Ameera Shah is the Managing Director of Metropolis Healthcare Ltd, a self-made entrepreneur who has built a billion dollar healthcare business with 4500 employees and 2000 centres across 6 countries. Metropolis delivers over 15 million tests annually and is rated amongst the top 1% laboratories globally for its quality systems and protocols. For the last 17 years, Ms Shah has focused on delivering sustained growth, built and led corporate functions, including finance, strategy, business process optimization, innovation, investor relations etc. Named amongst ‘Asia’s Most Powerful Women in Business’ by Forbes Asia and ‘Most Powerful Women in Business’ by Fortune India and Business Today, Ameera is recognized as a global thought leader in the healthcare industry.

Kerry Sain serves as the Executive Managing Director at 13D Global Strategy & Research. In this role, she has responsibility for driving revenue and growth for the global organization. This includes oversight across all go-to-market functions, commercial sales strategy and operations, sales development and effectiveness, strategic alliances and partnerships, as well as global marketing. Kerry has vast experience in general management, sales, benefits outsourcing, healthcare exchanges, retirement services and consulting. She was most recently EVP of Global Sales & Marketing/Chief Revenue Officer at SAP SuccessFactors and prior to that, CEO and president at bswift, a subsidiary of Aetna, Inc. and innovator in cloud-based benefits enrolment technology. 

Ravinder Kaur is the Professor of Sociology and Social Anthropology at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology - Delhi. She has worked extensively on issues of gender, reproductive technologies and skewed sex ratios and has published widely on the subject. Her ethnographic work on sex ratio induced bride shortages in Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, has been seminal to research in this area. She has co-authored a book “Planning families, Planning Gender” as well as edited two books - “Marrying in South Asia: Shifting Concepts, Changing Practices in a Globalized World” and “Too Many Men, Too Few Women: Social Consequences of the Gender Imbalance in India and China”. She has worked closely with the UNFPA on research and advocacy on gender-biased sex selection and has served on the Government of India’s Central Supervisory Board of the PC-PNDT (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act. She is founder-chair of IIT Delhi’s gender unit, IGES (Initiative for Gender Equity and Sensitization) and has been instrumental in bringing gender issues in STEM disciplines to the fore.

Animesh Kumar is the Chief People Officer at Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL). Having over 25 years of experience, Animesh has led the HR function in large Indian and Multi-National Companies for over 15 years. In his previous stint, he was associated with the Future Group as the Chief People & Transformation Officer wherein he was responsible for driving the internal transformation supporting the Retail 3.0 strategy of Future Retail. Animesh has worked with the IDFC Group for nine years in various roles like Group Head of Human Resources & Marketing and as the CEO of IDFC Foundation. He has served on Boards of various companies and has worked closely with non-profit organisations helping them enhance internal capacity to increase their social impact.

Monica Ralli serves as the Chief Marketing Officer at 13D Global Strategy & Research. She has extensive experience in organisational transformation through marketing, sales and business development gained from senior leadership roles in the professional services sector and diverse industry background including technology, finance, management consulting and the legal sector. She has been a core member and leader of 13D’s Women’s Group since its formation and is passionate about the opportunities and benefits presented in building a stronger and collaborative future between the genders. Monica also has been heavily involved in developing and running mentoring programmes within global organisations and has co-chaired a number of women’s groups throughout her career as well as closely examining millennial development and engagement in the workplace and speaking regularly on this topic.

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