ib by kacharagadla

Too few women are reaching the top of their organizations, and a big reason is that they are not getting the high-stakes assignments that are prerequisite for a shot at the C-suite. Often, this is due to a lack of powerful sponsors demanding and ensuring that they get these stepping-stone jobs. Ensuring that women get the sponsorship they need to move up has proved elusive for most organizations. Many companies have halted formal sponsorship programs, citing push back from executives who feel they are being asked to advocate for people they don’t know well or don’t think are ready. This isn’t a reason to give up on sponsorship; it’s an opportunity to reinvent how we approach it. Sponsorship is rarely something you simply turn on and off.  Rather, it’s a relationship, one that has evolved from lesser to greater trust and public commitment. Let’s first refresh our memory about why sponsorship matters. The vast majority of CEOs come from line positions — positions wi...

E-commerce is having a transformational impact and there are opportunities emerging in areas such as made-to-order meals, handicrafts and others, which women can capitalise on. The growing digitisation and mobility would open up more ways for women to participate in economic activity and help in gender diversity, ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar said. “There are so many new e-commerce opportunities around very small cottage entrepreneurship, which can enable more and more women to participate,” she said on the sidelines of a CII HR summit on diversity and inclusion. In her keynote speech, she said e-commerce was having a transformational impact with opportunities emerging in areas such as made-to-order meals and handicrafts among others, which women could capitalise on. Ms. Kochhar cited various studies showing that women contribute to only 17 per cent of India’s GDP, below the global average, despite accounting for 50 per cent of the population and having the potentia...