In the past century, women around the world have made great strides in entering the business world and working toward the levels of pay and responsibility afforded by their male counterparts. However, although women comprise 48.5 percent of India’s population, they represent a mere 26.1 percent of rural workers and 13.8 percent of urban employees, according to Catalyst’s Knowledge Centre.
Moreover, Catalyst continues, women make up only 3 percent of legislative, management, and senior official positions, while only 5.2 percent of them hold positions as board directors. Fortunately, with the Indian market growing rapidly to become the world’s third largest economy by the year 2030, as quoted by the Economic Times, there are projected to be a plethora of opportunities abound for women to take on management and leadership positions in the coming years.
At the Indian School of Business, we hope to leverage these possibilities to their fullest effect, by admitting a good ratio of women into our programme: 231 students constituting 30 percent of our accepted applicants are female. That number has risen steadily, increasing by almost 120 percent in the past 7 years, to now the highest-ever number of women in the Class of 2015, as quoted in the Times of India.
Women get to learn from women, as well: Our faculty is almost 20 percent female. Our emphasis on diversity means students learn to appreciate gender-neutral leadership early in their career, helping to push equality into the next generation.
When enrolling in our flagship Post Graduate Programme in Management, women get the chance to learn in a heterogenous setting from leaders across a wide field of business specialisations. The one-year programme is structured holistically to allow access to several women-specific groups and organisations. Among these is ‘Women in Business’, a student-run professional club that gives women the tools they need to leverage the resources available at-hand, on campus, and achieve their personal and professional goals. Club members often enjoy curated discussions with distinguished professionals from across the industry. Notable discussions have included celebrated social activist Kiran Bedi on ‘Tenets of leadership’, Anusha Bhagat, COO of UBS Securities on ‘The glass ceiling: Exploding myths and crashing stereotypes’, and Women@Google on ”Support systems for women employees and the LGBT community at Google’ among others.
Our students also benefit from Axis Bank’s “Women Leadership Programme,” which has hired large numbers of female candidates in the past two years. Students therefore benefit both while in the programme and once they complete it.
We aim to make the Indian School of Business approachable for any high-performing individual who has demonstrated a desire to transform themselves, including married women as well as female students in need of financial aid. If you have questions, take a look at our Frequently Asked Questions page or get in touch. We hope to hear from you.