Women held just 5.8 per cent(76) of the 1,314 board seats across 116 Indian unicorns, according to a private market intelligence platform, PrivateCircle Research.
In contrast, women occupied 18.3 per cent of board seats across India Inc in 2023, while the global average stood at 23.3 per cent, as per Deloitte’s Women in the Boardroom: A Global Perspective report. This highlights the significant opportunity to improve gender diversity in India’s unicorn ecosystem.
At the company level, 56 out of 116 unicorns (48 per cent) had at least one woman director on their board, while just 13 (11 per cent) of them had more than one woman director. This signals the continued efforts of unicorns to bridge the gender gap in boardrooms.
Murali Loganathan, Director of Research at PrivateCircle Research said, “It has been long established that companies with more diverse boards tend to perform better financially. McKinsey’s 2023 Diversity Matters Even More report also found that companies with more diverse boards tend to achieve stronger financial performance. Specifically, those in the top quartile for gender diversity on their boards are 27 per cent more likely to outperform financially compared to those in the bottom quartile.”
In PrivateCircle’s analysis, the finance unicorns had the highest representation of women directors (16) as compared to other sector unicorns. This was followed by software (8), retail (7), insurance (5), travel & hospitality (5), and emerging technology (4) unicorns. Several unicorns also stood out for their commitment to boardroom diversity with more than one women directors on their board.
Companies such as C.E. Info Systems Ltd (MapmyIndia), Incred Financial Services Ltd (Incred), One Mobikwik Systems Ltd (MobiKwik), Pb Fintech Ltd (PolicyBazaar), Fsn E-Commerce Ventures Ltd (Nykaa), Zomato Ltd (Zomato), and Fractal Analytics Ltd (Fractal Analytics) have the highest number of active women directors, with three each.
The presence of multiple women on their boards sets a positive example for the broader ecosystem, demonstrating that gender-inclusive leadership is possible and beneficial for business growth. According to the March 2024 edition of Women in the boardroom report, female representation in boardrooms has increased by 3.6 per cent since 2022 and the projected timeline for achieving gender parity has also shortened by seven years.