The representation of women falls drastically as one moves up the corporate ladder, a report by PRIME Database shows. From 23% employees being women, the share of women dwindles down as we go up the hierarchy to 13% of Key Management Personnel (KMPs), 10% executive directors (EDs) and just 5% Managing Directors (MDs)/Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), showcasing the leaky bucket phenomena, says the report.
Women hold just 480 out of the 4,828 executive directorship positions, up marginally from 8% as on 31st March 2020. Just 5%, or 103 out of the 2,133 companies, have a woman MD/CEO, with barely any improvement over the last 5 years. There are 115 women MD/CEOs in these 103 companies of which 77 (or 67%) are from the promoter group itself showcasing the lack of “outside professional” women at the very top.
Outside professional executive women directors (non-promoters), as a whole, hold just 163 out of 2,344 such directorship positions (or 7%). Only 6%, or 123 out of the 2,133 companies, have a woman chairing the board. 57 out of these 123 chairpersons (or 46 per cent) are from the promoter group (Table 10).
According to Pranav Haldea, managing director, PRIME Database Group, while India has made significant progress on several parameters, there is still a long journey ahead as far as women representation at the top of the corporate hierarchy is concerned.
Data from PRIME Database further shows that 97% of the 2,133 companies listed on NSE main board have at least one woman director on board as on 6 March 2025. Of the 57 companies which do not have a woman director, 26 are public sector undertakings (PSUs).
The Companies Act, 2013 mandates that every listed company and any public company with a paid-up share capital of Rs. 100 crore or more, or a turnover of Rs. 300 crore or more, is required to appoint at least one woman director on its board.
As many as 2,687 women hold 3,479 directorship positions or 21% of the directorship positions, up from 17% as on 31st March 2020 and just 5% as on 31st March 2014 when the requirement to appoint one woman director on board had just been announced in February 2014.
According to Haldea, this shows the monumental role played by the regulation in improving the representation of women on board.
The number of companies having two or more women directors has gone up from 29% as on 31st March 2020 to 48% per cent now.
Women hold 2,370 out of the 8,472 independent directorship positions (or 28%), up from 17% as on 31st March 2018 before the requirement to appoint one woman independent director in the top 500 companies by market capitalisation came on 1 April 2019.