Tag: Gender Equity

Hosted by ACT, UnHerd brings you the unheard stories of individuals who are challenging conventional principles to disrupt the social impact landscape. From social entrepreneurs to venture philanthropists, dive into real-world conversations on what they’ve experienced and learned about changing the status quo.

Our latest episode of UnHerd features Shreyasi Singh (Founder, Harappa – now acquired by UpGrad), in conversation with Anupama Kashyap (Manager, ACT For Women). Shreyasi shares her journey from journalism to entrepreneurship, building Harappa into a leading online learning platform and her mission to empower more women leaders in India’s startup ecosystem and beyond.

Tune in on Spotify or watch the episode on YouTube to learn how Shreyasi is driving meaningful change in workplaces and breaking barriers for women in leadership.

Anupama: Hello folks, and welcome to the next episode of UnHerd – a podcast hosted by ACT. We bring to you the stories of extraordinary individuals disrupting India’s social impact & startup landscape by challenging conventional principles.

This episode is about a topic that is very close to our hearts at ACT; more women leaders within and beyond India’s startups. Highly resonant with my own professional goals, which is why I’m very excited to be joined today by someone who I’ve looked up to, and who truly embodies the spirit of breaking barriers. From journalism to entrepreneurship, an author and a passionate advocate for women in the workplace, our guest has led with purpose. She’s built a leading online learning platform – Harappa – which has redefined how Indian professionals hone their skills for success and growth in workplaces.

Welcome to UnHerd, Shreyasi!

Shreyasi: Thank you so much, Anupama. And thank you to the ACT team, who of course I love, for having me on UnHerd.

Anupama: Shreyasi, to give our audience a quick (insight) into you and your journey – we know that it has spanned from journalism to founding one of India’s most innovative learning platforms. And I think we all have these pivotal moments in our career that prompt that switch. I’m really curious to know about your story. Tell us more about that.

The spark that lit the fire: Of career pivots and crucible moments 

Shreyasi: Yes, I think my career really confuses people. I think we all have, in our lives and our careers, these crucible moments that set the direction of our next 10 years, next 15 years. And for me, that was the last stint that I had in journalism. 

Inc is an iconic American magazine on entrepreneurship and I was the editor of the India edition for four years. This was 2011 to 2015 and this is really when the startup boom was beginning to happen in India. It almost felt like doing a PhD in entrepreneurship because every month you’re bringing out 90 pages of a magazine. So from co-founder dynamics to how do you create a brand to what’s a great incentive structure for employees, how do you do performance management. Towards the end, you meet amazing entrepreneurs and founders who have this special conviction, right? Like there is this special ring in their voice, they bring this special energy to what they do and how they talk about their work. And more and more, I think I was feeling like, maybe I could do this too. I actually find great similarities between the skills that I learned as a journalist, and especially how well those skills were deployed. As a journalist, you’re very good at asking a set of structured, smart questions. 

As a founder, you also need to do that. You don’t know everything about everything, even in the company that you’re building. But I think there’s a very efficient way of (asking) a set of questions that gets you to that answer. Second, I feel like journalists come with a great deadline orientation. The magazine doesn’t wait for you to print it. It has to come out on the same day. But third and most importantly, and I didn’t know this six, seven years back when I started Harappa, there is an urge to create, you know? You start with a conversation and an empty word draft, and something emerges out of it. So I think these three skills really, I think, transferred very well and really helped me. But most importantly, it was the inspiration that I got from covering entrepreneurs and just entrepreneurship in general that let me think that I should aspire to do this and maybe I could do it too.

I actually had two pit stops between being the editor of Inc and finally being the founder of Harappa. And those pit stops were, I spent a year writing a book, which was a business non-fiction called The Wealth Wallahs. It was on the happy eventuality of entrepreneurial success for which I interviewed over a hundred people and spent a year, year and a half working on that book. And then after, working as a part of the founding team on an 18 month women’s only MBA program. And that was my first introduction to higher education and especially alternative higher education – how different models and formats (work), especially in a country like India where there has to be almost an insatiable appetite and need and demand for learning. I think that is when it first got kindled. So I think if these two (pitstops) hadn’t happened, maybe Harappa also wouldn’t happen. I also do want to give a lot of credit to my co-founder at Harappa, who’s a pioneering educationist of his own, Pramath (Raj Sinha). And I think he said that we should really work together.

And that’s really how Harappa happened. Harappa was incorporated in March 2018, which is just six and a half years back. But Harappa has just been on this ridiculous accelerated condensed kind of cycle that I think none of us imagined. Most startups don’t work, right? So you don’t take these questions so seriously. Because you’re almost like, let me try this for six months a year. We’ll see how it goes. We raised two rounds of funding from James Murdoch’s family office. And then of course in July 2022, we were acquired by UpGrad. And as of six to eight weeks back, I’ve also exited UpGrad and Harappa has fully merged into UpGrad. 

So I think it has been the most intense six years of living the entire life cycle of a business – from conceptualizing an idea, raising funds for it, building products, going through an acquisition and then finally merging that company.

First principle lens: Lessons as a first-time founder

Anupama: Sounds like such an invigorating journey over the last six years. Kudos to you for building something so amazing! I think for ACT also, we’ve come across Harappa mostly from the sense of working with women in the startup ecosystem and how we can set them up for success? Shreyasi, I know Harappa in the last six years has done a lot of intentional work with women – in supporting them and also building workplaces that work for them, right? I’d love to understand from you, how did that come to be? What was your vision, to be able to enable something like that?

Shreyasi: So very quickly, Harappa is essentially, as we used to describe it, a learning institution. And first we used to say an online learning institution, but then of course we also did blended programs. So we used to just say a learning institution that focused on cognitive, social, and behavioral skills for working professionals, right? Because the belief is that you could be a computer scientist, a public policy person, an HR manager and the fact is that these cognitive, social, and behavioral skills are critical in each of these roles, right? They transcend industry, they transcend companies, they transcend specializations.

So there was a school for managers and we had a series of programs for managers, first time managers, high impact managers, high performing managers. It had a school for CXOs where we would do a lot of programs for CXOs. But over the last three, four years across 100 plus companies and enterprises, we’ve probably trained the most number of women professionals.

I feel like this conversation has reached a crescendo sometimes. I feel like people think that we’ve talked about it so much and we’re so talked out that it seems like things would have actually changed on the ground. But in most companies, I would say, things actually change very, very slowly. Some of us might be bored of this conversation but many of us, I know, need to keep talking and need to keep speaking and need to keep doing. And I think that as a woman leader, that conviction was very personal. The cause or the calling is to leave the world of work for women better than I found it. Whether it’s Harappa or whatever, it’s going to be a thread across everything that I do in life. And one of the things that I always say is that when given a chance, make the change.  

So, I take that very seriously, that I was given a chance for whatever little change that I could make at that moment. And actually through the delivery of those programs and through us meeting women professionals from across IT, finance, manufacturing across the country, my conviction that this is necessary and needed actually kept deepening. Because honestly Anupama, the sad fact is that things are even worse. The situation is still very dire.

Traversing tough roads: Women’s careers as the greatest obstacle course in history

Anupama: I couldn’t agree more. I think having worked in this space for a while as well, the challenges, I mean, we can have a whole other podcast on what they are. What would you say are some key barriers that are holding women back?

Shreyasi: I’ll speak about both threads, my personal observations and personal experiences but also some of the things that we saw, not only through observation of our learners but we started to do a lot of research around this at Harappa.

Only 7% of the women that we polled said that they felt any kind of equitable proportion of seeing women in their management teams or super senior positions. Just 7%. I call women’s careers the greatest obstacle course in history. Because one of the things that we found is there are three almost super clear stages and cusps where fall off starts to happen. The first cliff happens at what I call the broken rung, which is the 28 to 32 year old (segment) – there’s almost a 37% drop. Then it happens just before the glass ceiling. And then over the last three or four years, another phenomenon that’s been seen is what they call the glass cliff, that even for women who make it to the top, [they] are actually leaving the workforce or are being almost ejected slash evicted from their roles or are set up for roles in which success was impossible, at twice the rates at which super senior male professionals are. So, almost at no point, can you take your continued success for granted, right? And this is happening when actually from an education, graduation outcomes perspective over the last seven to eight years, India has done so well – some streams graduate more women than men and most of those women graduate with better CGPAs. So while of course, education is a big leveler, certainly for women in India, educational outcomes have absolutely not correlated to income outcomes or career outcomes. You know, there is certainly something that we are missing there. In fact, workforce participation, especially in high value work in urban settings, has actually gone down after COVID in many aspects. 

I think the most upset and angry that I’ve been was with this data point. We actually found that the greatest pay gap between male professionals and women professionals was at the CXO and CXO minus one level. I think it was Rs. 74 to Rs. 100. I was like, my god, how much more do you need to prove yourself? This can’t be about merit and skill because you are a CXO or a CXO minus one. But at the time when you felt like, my gosh, I have made it, I am a part of the senior most whatever but actually you’re possibly confronted with the greatest pay gap. 

In fact, another thing that we found in the What Women Feel report, and this is my personal experience as well, especially over the last two years and my naive imagination or my naive assumption was that the more senior you get, you’re insulated from the petty biases and microaggressions. We’ve actually not found that. Tenure isn’t a sunblock against bias.

I personally experienced that as well. I think in a way it is sometimes a woman with power and influence who pisses off the world much more than somebody who doesn’t yet have that influence. In fact, we saw that early managers, first-time managers who were women faced the most biases because maybe their newfound status and power made others around them very uncomfortable.

Anupama: I think the greatest obstacle course in history is such an apt way of describing the problem statement we’re speaking about. And I can so well resonate with this. I did my engineering. I couldn’t see a career there mostly because of the dearth of women I saw in roles of leadership or influence. And I know it’s just one part of the huge pile of challenges women have to face. But Shreyasi, a lot of times when we speak about this with people, it becomes a very ‘inclusion and fairness’ conversation. But I know it’s so much beyond it. Research after research shows that gender diverse teams actually have a great impact on business outcomes in terms of employee culture, NPS, and investors having more faith in organizations, right? But what has your viewpoint been on this, being a founder yourself, but also being an advocate for having more women in the workplace? Why do you think gender diversity is important in workplaces for organizations?  

Shreyasi: You know, both with gender as well as in gender, if we talk about women. And I think race. To me, those are the two fault lines where it’s immediately apparent who you are. The minute you walk into a room, or the minute you speak on the phone, right, or even your email ID, people know that you’re a woman.

So I think it’s so immediate, it’s so tangible. It’s also half the world, right? In many populations, it’s 51-52% of the world. What are you going to be able to achieve with half the world locked out, it’s not 5%, 6%, 8%, right? It’s half the world. How does the world progress with half the world’s talent unvalued, half the world’s talent unlocked, half the world’s talent being unfair, half the world’s talent not being given opportunities for their potential. It’s an almost unfair or unreasonable expectation to imagine that with half the world not happily, fruitfully engaged in work that has value or is valued, where they are actually engaged.  

Think about having a world where that larger number is disenfranchised in such critical ways. And that’s why it’s important. It’s not a ‘nice to have’ (conversation). I think the orientation has to be to create that, especially when it comes to women and women’s agency.

Anupama:  Even at ACT, our whole thesis also focuses on the fact that having more women in roles of leadership or roles of influence, as we like to call it, shows so much more impact in terms of organizations, policies, culture, programs that are rolled out and has an impact throughout the pipeline. In your own experience, you’re a women founder and you’ve seen women in roles of leadership. How does it change? 

Shreyasi: So immediate downstream impact, it’s very tough to establish that right? And which is why people will disbelieve it, because it’s such a longitudinal impact. It takes, like I said, decades for businesses to really say, what this will become. But I’ll tell you the immediate and clear impact I think it has.

Even when you are running the business, right? I’d like to think that the fact that I was there and doing all of these uber cool startup things like raising funding and getting acquired – I do feel like it certainly added a set of confidence to many of my women colleagues. In fact, probably the best compliment that I feel like I’ve ever got as a CEO was this young – I think she’s a computer science engineer and she used to work in our product team – very smart young woman who had seven, eight years of work experience and then she was with us for two, two and a half years. And she was wearing this stunning sari and bright red lipstick. And she said, you know, this is the first time as somebody part of the product or engineering team that I can be dressed like this, yet go to a SCRUM meeting and give directions to engineers. She said, never before in my career as part of product and engineering teams would I have dared to be so feminine, yet be doing probably some of the best quality work that I’m doing in my career. I got goosebumps.

I think we were 50% or more women. But not only that, twice a year, I would write an email to the team to say that these are the six bands that we have. This is the percentage gap or not between women professionals in our company. So sometimes it would be like, wow, women associate directors are actually getting paid more than male associate directors and I’m hoping that that becomes a way that others also do it.

Anupama: What I’m hearing you say is that you’ve seen and witnessed a shift in terms of having a good role model, building that culture of inclusion. To a lot of people who ask why gender diversity is important within organizations, I think that’s just bang on. Just switching gears a little bit, Harappa I know has worked with both big corporate clients and startups. Our research on WISER (Women in India’s Startup Ecosystem Report) shows that in representation of women, startups are doing really well. There’s a long way to go, but it’s definitely better than where corporate India is currently at. So if I were to ask you, what are some broad trends you’ve observed, especially in the startup ecosystem in terms of what’s going well or what needs more focus on, what would you say they are?

Shreyasi: So here I have to be honest that I was really surprised when I saw the first WISER report in terms of the startups doing much better than established companies. I have to say that we actually found it much easier. Most of our, I would say 90% of our revenue from the women-focused programs actually went to some of India’s and the world’s largest companies. What I’m seeing in startups, one is of course that there’s just greater entrepreneurial activity. And many women, women across all tenures, are trying to be entrepreneurial, setting up businesses. I just feel like the overall culture and attitude to risk taking, to being on your own, to being a person with multiple skills if you’re starting out even a small business. I think it’s really overall good for women professionals because that will transcend. And it creates many more opportunities within the constraints of their societal structures for them to be able to create wealth.

I think the other thing that startups are really useful for is there’s no place to hide, right? Everybody, especially if you’re under a sub hundred people team, certainly there’s no place to hide. Everybody needs to pull their weight. So I think startups, if you find the right startup at the right time, I think startups can really script rewarding careers. Larger companies are still much more resistant to unconventional CVs, right? Startups are that way much more like, listen, you can do the job. If you can get the job done, come and do it, it doesn’t matter what you’ve done before. 

Future forward: Making workplaces work for women

Anupama: Shreyasi, that actually brings me to a very important question. Why should organizations focus on building workplaces that work for women? What is in it for them in terms of building gender diverse teams, why should they focus on it? Where do they start?

Shreyasi: It’s so tough to get good people, right? As an employer, as a manager, as a boss, all you want is good people to build products, sell products, manage people, manage teams, manage projects, all of that, right? The fact is that you want to look in every segment of the population to be able to get the skills. I say this sometimes, it’s controversial, I actually do believe that our companies and our employers are ahead of our homes and our societies when it comes to giving women an equitable (standing). I feel like most of us, many of us, including me, could face very different realities at home, or in our extended families, or in social situations than we actually do at the workplace. 

I place a lot of faith in companies and organizations being able to keep furthering that and hopefully society will catch up. I think professionals and certainly women professionals really need to be publicly praised for their contributions.

Public recognition doesn’t mean a town hall with 10,000 people CCed. They’re very small things. So one tip, and I used to say this, calendar it, right? Once a week, I would send an email highlighting or acknowledging other women peers. And I think we have to create some of these very large societal things into mini tasks that each one of us can do without any help from anybody else. Second is manager sponsorship. I feel like that the manager relationship is really one of the most critical relationships to get right. You don’t have to change the world for all the women you meet all the time, pick one. 

Over the last three or four or five years, I’ve used my role models really well, and really opportunistically, and I encourage all women professionals to do that. Role models are a guide to your future, who you will be in the next 10 years. I have Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie as one of my five women role models. I find her incredible – her luminosity and her ability. She’s a great public intellectual, talks a lot about feminism, but her ability to talk about a lot of tough things with a smile. Particularly as a founder, I found those skills so useful. Because you need to wear, sometimes you do need in many contexts and situations, you need to wear your activism lightly for that activism to be impactful, right? So my homework for all of your listeners who are listening to me and actually, all professionals can do this, not just women professionals, is having a role model mood board. You are here, this is where you want to be in five years, 10 years, who are the people who you think are viable and for what skill? 

The last thing I always tell women, colleagues and professionals is you know when you say don’t talk behind people’s back? I said flip it. You must talk about a woman peer or colleague when she’s not in the room, but say good things. 

Anupama: Shreyasi, it’s been so lovely chatting with you thank you so much for your time and being on our podcast. 

This brings us to the end of our (season finale) episode of UnHerd. We’ll be back with season 2 in March 2025. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our Spotify and YouTube channels where we’ll bring you more unheard stories of people who are passionate about creating impact at scale in different ways. People who truly stand apart from the herd. Follow us, like, subscribe and share.

 

Hosted by ACT, UnHerd brings you the unheard stories of individuals who are challenging conventional principles to disrupt the social impact landscape. From social entrepreneurs to venture philanthropists, dive into real-world conversations on what they’ve experienced and learned about changing the status quo.

Our fourth episode welcomes Suman Gopalan (Former CHRO at Freshworks) who, in conversation with Sowjanya Kanuri (Lead, ACT For Women), shares her philanthropic journey towards making workplaces more diverse and equitable for women. 

Listen to this episode on our Spotify channel or watch the conversation on YouTube.

Sowjanya: Hello folks and welcome to the fourth episode of UnHerd – a podcast hosted by ACT that delves into the extraordinary stories of individuals who are challenging conventional principles to disrupt India’s social impact landscape.

India ranks 5th from the bottom out of 146 countries, when it comes to women’s economic participation and opportunity. 30% of Indian women of working age are employed or looking for employment, compared to 53% globally. At the same time, there are umpteen studies that show that gender diverse companies are more successful – and that closing the employment gap between men and women, which is a whopping 58 percentage points in India, could expand our GDP by nearly $6 trillion. 

Our guest today brings over 25 years of experience in leading regional and global teams in large multinational corporations like Nielsen, Dell Technologies and Whirlpool before changing gears and moving to the startup ecosystem, where she was the Chief HR Officer at Freshworks – the first Indian SaaS company to be listed on NASDAQ – for over 5 years. A member of the CNBC Workforce Advisory Council, and our very own ACT For Women Advisory Council chair, she is a passionate advocate for women in the workplace. 

Welcome to UnHerd, Suman!

Suman: Thank you, Sowjanya. I’m really happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

The spark that lit the fire: Life experiences that gave birth to a lifelong mission 

Sowjanya: We’re thrilled to have you Suman. You’ve worn many hats through your career. You’ve been a people leader, a board member, a startup mentor, an angel investor, and also a philanthropist who advocates for increasing women’s workforce participation. So curious to know Suman, what prompted your foray into philanthropy? Can you share a little bit about that journey that really got you invested into the idea of changing the game for women at the work space?

Suman: I think most people go through various stages in life and career, and our priorities and our outlook also changes and evolves with that – so same for me. The early stage of my career was all about building a foundation, exploring opportunities fearlessly, and not having too many barriers to what I wanted to do. Then, once I figured out my area of interest, where my passion lies, I went through a growth stage and made conscious choices about the direction I wanted my career to take. Then you reach a point where it’s not just about growth, and you start defining success differently as well. It’s not about your own growth, but it really is about creating impact and building a legacy. And some of that actually naturally feeds into paying it forward in the workplace, and you extend that somewhat and then you start paying it forward in your community as well.

So that’s really how it happened for me as well. The more I started looking at “How do I create impact? How do I create a legacy? What is it that I want to be known for?” I realised that I have been really fortunate in my career to have received mentorship and sponsorship from several leaders, which has helped me become successful in my career. And today I am in a position where I can pay it forward, and that’s where it started – where I’m really passionate about paying it forward and really being able to share my experience and being able to work with young upcoming women leaders and women entrepreneurs.  

The second reason on why extend it to the community and philanthropy is slightly more personal. And this is based on my own experience in my career. I chose to take a break in my career. I’ve always been very focused – I really wanted to have lots of things I wanted to do with my career. But there also came a point in time where I made a personal choice to step aside for a bit and focus on my personal life. And that was the moment when my daughter was born. And I really just wanted to enjoy the period of motherhood, which was a vastly different experience from everything that you go through in a corporate environment. At that time, a lot of folks gave me sound advice saying it could potentially be harmful to my career. It could slow down my growth and a whole lot of stuff, but I was convinced that I should be able to have that choice, given the fact that I’ve proven myself in my career, I’ve reached leadership levels and I’ve had a history of success.

And so, I decided to take the plunge and focus on just being a mom. And when I was ready to come back, it was so very difficult. So that was the first time in my career I actually realised everything that people talked about – the glass ceiling, the barriers. And I faced all of that somehow. You know, when you generally don’t face that in your career so much and you’re suddenly faced with it, it really catches you unaware. A lot of people gave me really passionate advice about how my focus should be not on aiming for a leadership role, but probably starting somewhere lower and building my career back up – which actually felt very demotivating and it felt like I was paying some kind of a penalty for taking time off for a life reason.

So that’s what made me start to think about the barriers that women actually face and the truth and the reality behind it. So I was fortunate enough, as you all know, I took on the role as CHRO of FreshWorks. And so, one of the first things I did when I was back in a leadership role was to make sure that I’m creating an environment that allows women who make conscious choices for life reasons to be able to come back more easily into the workplace. And I had so many lessons that we learned in terms of how do we make it a more equitable place because so much of our workplace practices are built with traditionally what has been the workforce demographic, which is male. And I think now, when we are seeing more and more women come in, I think it’s about time we did something to change that practice so that it’s equal for both and not just built for the convenience of one.

So that’s really where I started passionately dedicating a lot of my time, and it evolved beyond just my organisation to the overall startup economy. And the thing that really makes me a lot more passionate about this is when I see statistics like what you just quoted, which is India is fourth or fifth from the bottom when it comes to women’s participation. And you look around us, India has one of the most educated workforces in the world, right? There is no reason why our workforce should not reflect that. So that’s my passion, and that’s really where I kind of stumbled into the area that I choose to put my energy behind, which is really bringing women back into the workforce.

Traversing tough roads: Taking diversity from a concept to tangible reality 

Sowjanya: Thank you, Suman. I mean, I know I’ve heard this story before, but it always inspires me a lot whenever you can share your own personal journey, and I think that’s really powerful to be able to hear from people who’ve gone through this journey and experienced this to be able to share this with others. Given your vantage point Suman, since you’ve been a working woman yourself and you’ve also led organisations, people, strategies – not just at Freshworks but even in other organisations – where would you say we are today when it comes to employers creating more, enabling workplaces for women?

Suman: Look, I think in general we are making progress. We are moving in the right direction. When I reflect back on my own career and look back to 25 plus years when I started, it’s way different. A couple of things. One is I think the government definitely has played a huge role in making sure that there are a lot more equitable practices and they’ve mandated it. From being very progressive with maternity leave and benefits to requiring employers to ensure it’s a safe and equitable workplace. I think the government has done its part. There’s only so much you can do in terms of creating those laws and enabling mechanisms. And I think the employers are also stepping up. I don’t think you can continue to remain the way you were 25 years ago. And so I’m seeing progress, but I don’t think it’s enough.

Every time I see statistics that say it’s gonna take three lifetimes for us to achieve parity, it tells me that’s not enough. And that’s where I think we all need to be a lot more thoughtful and purposeful about it. Because something like this where you are trying to change what has been a legacy for so many years, requires purposeful action, right? Equity just doesn’t happen by itself. And so, I do think that while employers are progressing in the right direction, I think we all have to be a lot more purposeful in terms of what we want to do and how we want to do it.

Sowjanya: That brings me to your experience at FreshWorks. In 2020, the organisation made a public commitment to gender diversity by joining the pledge for equality. So tell us a little bit about the motivation behind that – why equality and why is that so important?

Suman: At FreshWorks, we wanted to build not just a great business – we always wanted to build a great company. And that is really where it all started. From the very early stages, FreshWorks was very diverse. We didn’t give labels to the diversity, but we were diverse in every sense of the word. We hired people from various backgrounds, varied experiences. We actually threw out the playbook in terms of who we hire, what kind of pedigree we look for, all of that. So that in itself ensured that there was a certain level of diversity that actually came with it. Now, having said that, as we were growing bigger, we realised that we have to be more purposeful. We cannot let diversity happen to us. That’s one. Secondly, while we had a lot of diversity overall, the one area we weren’t really doing well on was gender diversity.

And it was very apparent because while we had a lot of women overall, we had very, very few women at leadership levels or board levels. Like you can count them in one hand. And that matters a great deal because the tone of the organisation is set at the very top. And so, if you don’t have a diverse voice at the top, you can’t do much overall – that’s one. Number two, you have to have role models, right? If you truly want women to rise, you need to have them surrounded by role models they can look up to learn from and aspire to be like. If all they are seeing are male role models, it just becomes that much harder to kind of imagine themselves being that, right? So that’s really where it started. And our conversation started with, okay, so where do we want to be? What does good look like for us? And that’s where we really took a bold stance and said, just improving a few percentage points really is nothing to talk about. 

So we said, if you truly want to be best in class, and if you really mean what you mean about equality and diversity, then there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be at 50%. Anything less than 50% is nothing to write home about. But it’s not something you can do overnight, right? You can’t go from 25% to 50% overnight. It’s a journey. But that’s where we made a public commitment and said that we will embark on a journey to equality over the next few years. And we said as a first step, we will get to at least a third of our entire organisation being women, but the place where it matters the most in terms of driving change, is at the leadership level. And that is truly where we spent a lot of our time. And we said, we are going to have at least 25% of our leadership team, including CXOs and board members being women. And fortunately we were able to really drive that very, very seriously. And that really set the tone for the rest of the organisation to follow through as well.

First principles lens: The role of leadership teams in enabling gender equity at the workplace

Sowjanya: Amazing. I mean, I think that is a very bold step for any organisation to take. So on that Suman, just because I know listeners might be interested, in terms of once you’ve made that commitment – what were some specific actions that Freshworks took to actually translate that commitment into reality?

Suman: Look, first and foremost, the thing that matters is once you have your leadership team committed to it, I think it galvanises a lot of action internally. So that’s the first thing. When we set a target, we made a pledge like this, and it came right from the top, right? It wasn’t like an initiative driven by a team, it really was our CEO being passionate about the cause, putting himself out there. And that internally just drew a lot of momentum. Every function, every leader took a hard look at their own teams and thought through what would ‘good’ look like for them, and if they had to get to parity, what would that look like? So that’s where it started in terms of just the purpose and driving some momentum and traction around it.

But there are a few things that we did as a company that helped. One is education across the board. While the intent is all great, you have to realise that there are a lot of unconscious biases that exist. We call it ‘conventional wisdom’. You have to actually work through those consciously and in a more planned manner before you can actually move past all of that. So we did a lot of work in terms of educating and really starting a conversation around unconscious biases. 

You won’t believe everything that we question – say for instance, when you make an offer to a candidate, we had instances where we were making offers to men and women for similar roles. Say, you are hiring for a sales role. For one, you’re hiring a woman, and for one, you’re hiring a man. You realise that a lot of times the conversation is based on expectations on compensation or previous compensation. If you choose to continue that, you’ll realise that bias will always be there in your compensation. So those are the kind of biases you have to question. And we had some brilliant leaders who broke through that mould and really pushed the talent acquisition team by saying, no, I want to look at every woman leader who’s being hired. I want to personally see the compensation.

 Now, there are times where women will want to take that break. That’s a personal choice they have to make. And we completely respect that, knowing that India has millions of women who’ve taken a break and just never found an opportunity to come back. So we created a returnship program that enables us to attract some really, really talented women who are sitting at home because they never found the opportunity to come back. So that was the other thing that we did that enabled us to not just bring at an entry level or a leadership level, but also at that mid-management level.

Future forward: The role startups can play in leading the way on diversity 

Sowjanya: Thanks, Suman. Hearing these examples almost makes it a lot more real and tangible in terms of the actual efforts that some of this takes. And it’s not just that you make a commitment and then you see action immediately, but some of this is long and hard. As a philanthropist and an advisor, you continue to champion gender equality in startups. And I know you’re very passionate in your belief about how startups can actually lead the way for changing the equation for women’s participation in the workforce. Where do you see the opportunity for startups to succeed where many established companies haven’t?

Suman:I love what startups are doing to disrupt businesses. Some amazingly creative ideas are really disrupting the way we do business, the way we lead our lives, the way we consume products, the way we purchase – every aspect of life. Similarly, I also think startups are rewriting the code on ways of working, where work happens, how we work, how to build teams, how we think about talent. Startups are amazingly creative places, which is why I am so gung-ho about startups leading the way for this change. I think they don’t have years of legacy to rewrite or overwrite. They’re starting afresh. And every startup founder has this vision of not only building a great business, but building a great organisation, and therefore it comes from the right place. They have the ability and the intent to actually break a few conventional norms that have existed for years and years and think differently about talent. So that’s the number one reason why I’m so bullish on startups changing the way we think about the gender equation. That’s one. I think it’s in their DNA to experiment, take risks, so I definitely think it is a great place for us to really look for a change like this. Two, I also think and I also know that startups have a younger talent profile. And this generation of employees really cares about companies having progressive workplace practices, whether it’s in terms of flexibility, benefits, or inclusion. And so, if you truly want to attract great talent, I think you have to have workplace practices that kind of support that demographic as well.

The last one, it’s a very practical one Sowjanya, which is that startups are always looking to attract great talent, right? And we always talk about this war for talent, which is really going to stop us from being successful, right? Every CEO talks about how it keeps them awake at night, but then you think about it, half of your demographic is not even working, right? Amazingly educated population that is not even working. So how about instead of fighting over the same small group of people, we go and tap into this brilliant group of people who have all the passion to work, just haven’t had the opportunity to as yet? 

Sowjanya:I think that that makes a lot of sense. And I think just looking at the flip side, I know there are a lot of exciting opportunities and reasons and ways in which startups are already doing this, but again, just given your experience what do you think are some of the challenges that are rather unique to startups that, based on your journey, anyone else who’s taking this path should really be aware of?

Suman: See, a couple of things. I’d say one is you have to have executive sponsorships for this. Diversity, equity, inclusion is not a program. It has to be a way of life. It has to be, like I said, built into everything you do, right? Not just in hiring. It’s in terms of when you are designing benefits, when you’re designing workplace practices, everything has to have this built into it. Build it into how you make decisions, build it into how you build a product, build it into all your practices – that’s truly inclusive. Two, you have to have the executive team sponsor it. Don’t palm it off to one team or one organisation or one group to do it. Then it becomes somebody’s OKR or scorecard and nobody else cares about it. 

So that’s number one. Number two, like I mentioned before, unconscious bias is everywhere. We all mean very well. Nobody has any bias that is intentional, but we are all shaped by the experiences we’ve had. And so, it is really important that when we set out to have or build an organisation that’s diverse, we’re trying to break some of that apart. The third one, and I say this with all the right intent, there’s a very thin line between advocacy and activism. So when you approach diversity and inclusion with the mindset of activism, you won’t go very far in influencing people. Because they’re always going to kind of have that barrier in terms of why they should be part of it. Whereas if you’re an influencer and you’re advocating for it, you can actually bring people along. And that’s really what I mean. You have to bring people along in this journey. It cannot be just your passion. It cannot just be your OKR that’s driving it, right? So advocacy over activism is really, really key over here.

Sowjanya:I really like the way you put that advocacy over activism. Suman, if you were to speak to a startup founder today – and obviously they’re chasing growth, yet they don’t have money, they don’t have time, they don’t have resources, so gender diversity may not be top of their mind, and understandably so. But what advice would you really give a startup founder today who may or may not be thinking about this and what are the tangible ways in which they can even start this journey? 

Suman: Look, I wouldn’t say start with diversity as an initiative. Then it just puts a lot of onus and like you rightly said Sowjanya, I have so many things, I’ve got to raise money. I’ve got to build my product, I’ve got to scale my revenue. I have so many existential things that I have to focus on. You know, if I looked at diversity, it’s probably going to be 101 on my list of things, practically speaking as a founder. So my advice is don’t view it as an initiative. Make this as a part of how you build the company. So from the word go or get go, have a point of view on the kind of company you want to build. And this has a bearing on everything. It has a bearing on your culture, it has a bearing on your brand, it has a bearing on diversity. So think about it that way. Don’t think about diversity as an initiative, then it’s exhausting. Because then you start putting scorecards and action. 

No. Start with having a point of view on what a great organisation looks like? I get this one shot at building a great company and a great product or a great business, right? So start over there and when you start to think about what that great organisation looks like, then you start to put some thoughts and actions behind it. And I would guarantee you that part of it is being inclusive. Where people from all backgrounds, all kinds of experiences, all kinds of inclinations – everything, everybody can thrive.  

Two, you are always, always going to have a war for talent. If you truly want to attract great talent, right? We all go after the same set of people. But if you truly want to have an edge over attracting talent, why your company gets spoken about, then it has to do with your culture. It has to do with your people practices, and diversity is a big part of it. The third one I would say is start with your own leadership team. If you build a diverse leadership team, it’ll cascade down in your organisation. Then you will find that naturally the tone at the top tends to be very inclusive. Then as you grow slightly bigger as a company, that’s where you have to be purposeful about it. Then I would say startup founders should really start to think about what their point of view on diversity is? What do they want it to be? What does success look like? Then you start to put goals around it. That would be my advice. I don’t think at day zero you start by saying, I’m going to be 50% diverse. You can, but I don’t think every single person can do it, because you’re really looking at how do I get my first 20, 50 people in? But just start by having a foundation that is inclusive and then you can build on it.

Sowjanya: And I think it can easily get overwhelming if you try and do everything at once. So I really like how you’ve broken it down into steps and what you do at different stages almost.  

I think my last question to you is really, if you step back and really think about what success looks like for you – personally on this journey that you’ve embarked on, but also for the ecosystem at large – what are some of the things that you’re seeing that are really giving you hope and where do you hope we really end up at?

Suman: Success for me is when we make progress in this generation and not have to wait for three generations to see success. That’s my first hope. Biggest hope is that we don’t give up saying it’s going to take a lifetime to do it, or three lifetimes to do it. Success for me is when we start to see a corporate leadership team that is a lot more diverse. And so I do think we should, and we have to, aim for at least 40%, if not more, of executive teams being comprised of women, because that’s your demographic. Two, success for me would be when women can choose to take a break and come back without the stigma attached to having taken a break and therefore losing their career progression. Success for me is when every CEO thinks about diversity as an integral part of their talent plan. Just like how they have a business plan, they should have a plan that should incorporate elements of inclusiveness and diversity. That’s my hope and my wish for corporate India and startups.

Sowjanya: Thank you so much, Suman. This has been so, so, so amazing! Thank you so much for joining us in this conversation. 

Suman: Likewise. Pleasure talking to you, Sowjanya. 

Sowjanya: This brings us to the end of our fourth episode of UnHerd – a podcast presented by team ACT. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to our Spotify and YouTube channels where we’ll bring you more unheard stories of people who are passionate about creating impact at scale in differential ways. People who truly stand apart from the herd.

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Startups in India have the potential to create 2 million new jobs for women by 2030, suggests the Women in India’s Startup Ecosystem Report ( WISER ), adding that the ecosystem is uniquely positioned to attract female talent. The report finds that women made up 35 percent of the startup workforce in 2022 (the corresponding figure for the corporate sector was 19 percent) and indicates that, with careful introspection within the startup community which enables timely and targeted action, that number can rise to 50 percent by 2030.

WISER shows that startups offer women a highly conducive growth environment, by way of faster career progression and higher autonomy, which enables female employees to meet their career goals at different stages. Women-led startups in particular are observed to perform even better on gender equality, with startups that have at least one female founder seen to have 2.5x women in senior roles as compared to male-founded startups.

The report notes that startups are currently faring better than traditional enterprises, with 32 percent women in managerial positions vis a vis 21 percent in corporates. This gap widens further at the CXO level where corporates have only 5 percent of women in leadership positions against 18 percent in startups. However, while the overall figures are promising, significant work lies ahead – 10 years into their careers, 8 out of 10 men in startups occupy Director-level positions or higher, compared to only 5 in 10 women.

It is poignant to note that contrary to popular perception, women’s motivations to join startups are no different from men, with both preferring accelerated learning & advancement, fast pace of work and innovation as key drivers.

Led by ACT For Women in collaboration with The Udaiti Foundation, the Women in India’s Startup Ecosystem Report (WISER) is India’s first and largest collaborative report on women in startups. With participation from 200+ startups, including the likes of Urban Company, Meesho and Zomato, the 2023 edition focuses on understanding the drivers for gender diversity across employment levels and spotlighting best practices that have helped improve women’s participation. The study, which had McKinsey & Company as the Knowledge Partner and LEAD at Krea University as the Research Partner, adopted a mixed methodology approach with participation from 111 founders, 117 CHROs, and almost 800 startup employees.

Read the full report here.

ACT for Women emerged from a pressing need to accelerate women’s workforce participation and make substantial progress towards achieving gender equity at the workplace in our lifetimes. Over decades, despite the gradual increase in literacy rates, women continue to remain significantly under-represented in the workforce. In response, ACT for Women has embarked on a mission to understand the challenges better through a collaborative study called WISER – Women in India’s Startup Ecosystem Report.

The intention has been to focus on employers as a lever of change (with an initial lens on startups) and gather customised, actionable insights. Known for their agility and bias for action, the startup ecosystem has already been a successful disruptor in multiple spaces and we firmly believe that it has the potential to contribute significantly towards helping India improve its female labour force participation as well.

WISER is the first and largest of its kind research study that is designed exclusively for Indian startups and aims to help them advance gender diversity and inclusivity at the workplace. It will look at understanding the drivers for gender diversity within the startup ecosystem by collaboratively assessing demand-side barriers to women’s representation across employment levels and spotlighting best practices that have helped improve women’s participation. A collaboration between ACT For Women and The Udaiti Foundation, with LEAD at Krea University, McKinsey & Co, and NASSCOM 10,000 startups as key partners, it aims to establish a baseline for women’s participation in the startup ecosystem while identifying enablers that reflect in better hiring, retention and advancement of women professionals. It will examine startups across various sectors and life-stages, allowing for a more nuanced understanding of the factors that can enhance women’s participation across all levels. Over the last 4.5 months, the WISER team has conducted in-depth surveys and interviews with founders and CHROs from over 130 organisations as well as with 500+ startup employees – the report is slated for public release in July-August 2023.

A key highlight of WISER is its commitment to providing tailored and actionable insights to participating organisations. Through careful analysis of the collected data, the report will offer specific recommendations to each participating startup which align with each organisation’s unique context and requirements. These insights will empower organisations to make informed decisions and implement effective measures to foster gender diversity and inclusivity. While the focus is on supporting participating organisations, we will also strengthen the big picture focus of this exercise by deriving separate insights for VCs/investors who are invested in gender diversity at the workplace and are looking for ways to enable their portfolios to do better in terms of women’s representation. Finally, the hope is also to show industry-level best practices as case studies to allow the larger ecosystem to learn from the tips and tricks that resource constrained startups across stages are already successfully implementing.

To us, WISER is just the start of the conversation on women’s workforce participation and we look forward to working with the startup ecosystem to take action and create lasting impACT!