Indian Family Firms Finally Discover Their Women - Building Gender Balanced Business

• Indian business is not only dominated by a number of family-controlled companies, but those companies have usually been dominated by the fathers and sons of those families. That is starting to change.

• More and more women are taking leading roles in the companies run by their families. Examples include: Meher Pudumjee of Thermax, Vinita Gupta of Lupin Pharmaceuticals), Mallika Srinivasan of Tractors and Farm Equipment (better known as TAFE), Divya Ramachandran of Helios & Matheson India, Schauna Chauhan of Parle AGRO, Sushma Berlia of Apeejay Stya Group & Swran Group and Sminu Jindal of Jindal SAW.

• The process is still new and tentative. Berlia, who is president of Apeejay Stya & Swran, told The Economic Times of India, “Succession planning in big business families in India still excludes women to a large extent.”

• But with fewer children, she added, “Things are slowly changing.” Berlia is herself an only child.

• She cites another reason: a Supreme Court ruling that gives women equal inheritance rights in the family money.

• Rajshree Pathy, chairman and MD of the Rajshree group of companies, said, “Women getting involved in a family business is not exactly by design. It’s more a case of default. But with more and more women proving that they are better than their male counterparts, it has meant that an individual will have to demonstrate his/her worthiness to lead in [the] future.”

The Economic Times article