Five reasons why women lack visibility in Indian startup ecosystem

When The Economic Times announced its best start-up awards for 2016, the jury had 10 eminent people representing various sectors in the industry. But take another look at the jury. There is just one woman, Vani Kola, Founder and Managing Director, Kalaari Capital. Were not more women found to fill the skewed gender jury? And the one woman who bagged an award, Meera Ganesh, Co-Founder, Portea Medical got it in the Woman Ahead Category, too. Pray, why?

The reasons for women not being included in eminent panels are many.

Societal bias: There is an inherent bias against women. Even in the west, women broke the glass ceiling in entrepreneurship only a few decades ago. Women have become active in business and entrepreneurship in India about 5-7 years back, says Dr Githa Heggde, Senior Associate Dean, Marketing at Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research, Bengaluru,  “India still has taboos attached to the girl child. I am 49 years old and in my generation there are women who have reached top levels in their profession. There existed a lot more social biases, a generation earlier. Not many women perhaps got the opportunity to education and go out and build a career.”

Another reason is that women have always had to sacrifice their career at the altar of the family needs and concerns. Be it marriage, childbirth, children’s education, husband having to move cities for work  to even parents and in-laws taking ill, it is the woman that the family expects to leave everything and tend to the emergency. “These emergencies lead to breaks in career and some women are unable to go back to their jobs. However, those who can find that their career graph is not sharp as their earlier contemporaries for the break in career meant that they lose out on promotions and career growth,” says Heggde.

Late entrants: Women in the workforce have been late entrants especially in start-ups, says Sairee Chahal, Founder and CEO, Sheroes -  a portal which provides information for women job seekers. Chahal believes that there are fewer numbers of women compared to men in the start-up ecosystem. “There are not as many women of the caliber of say a Binny Bansal [of Flipkart> or Kunal Bahl [of Snapdeal>, for instance. Women representation in the start-up ecosystem started late,” says Chahal. However, though there are capable women in CFO and HR roles in India, there are not as many at the CEO levels, says Chahal. She says that it is difficult to name over three women VCs in the country or the top ten start-up women entrepreneurs. It is also a matter of scale. Some women are running billion dollar companies and some are running smaller sized start-ups. However she is hopeful that the landscape for women in the start-up space will change soon. “It is only a matter of time. Women have made their presence felt in the ecosystem in the last five years,” adds Chahal.

Inherent bias against women: There are enough and more competent women who could grace any panel on start-ups or any other sector. But the reality is that it is networking that gets most people to be chosen in these juries and panels. People simply look out for whom they know. “I was on a panel last week and was the only woman member in that panel,” says Paula Mariwala, Executive Director, Seedfund and Founder and Co-President at Stanford Angels and Entrepreneurs India. Even in Silicon Valley, says Mariwala, there are more men than women entrepreneurs. She thinks many women are not in the spotlight because most of them are not networking like men. But there are many women who have inherited family businesses and do well, she says, just like there are many leading women bankers in the country. However, she admits that there is a still a void when it comes to women entrepreneurs.

Look out, there are professional women: Geetha Kannan, Managing Director of Anita Borg Institute (ABI) India, says that there are many women who are leading tech companies in India and in MNCs, too. She rattles off a list– Aruna Jayanthi, former CEO of Capgemini who is now its global BPO head, Vanitha Narayanan, Managing Director, IBM India Pvt Ltd., Neelam Dhawan, Managing Director of HP India Pvt Ltd; Sandhya Vasudevan, Group COO and Managing Director, Deutsche Bank; Pankajam Sridevi, Managing Director, ANZ Bangalore; Sushma Rajagopalan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, ITC Infotech, and many more. “Aren’t all these women capable of being on a panel?” There are enough and more women entrepreneurs who could be called to represent the ecosystem, says Kannan. Zivame’s Richa Kar, for instance.

Kannan rues the fact that when a woman is given an award it is for a category that solely focuses on women. “Why give an award to Meera Ganesh in the Women leading from the front? You can’t restrict a woman’s achievement into a gender category," she says. Even when incubation centres are built by start-ups, no conscious decision is done to include women. “You develop tech for the marketplace and not give women representation?” The mindset needs to be changed. That, says Kannan, can come about only if a conscious decision is made to include women.

Not networked enough: Most women are not networked as men are and that probably comes from the fact that they are inherently shy or they have had no time what with balancing family and work, says Mariwala. Often, women themselves prefer to take a backseat. Many times, says Kannan, there is a club and women are not part of it because women do not push their ambitions themselves, and as individuals do not want to. “On any jury, usually one is invited because one is networked. If you are not part of the so-called club, you won’t be called,” says Kannan.

Until women take steps to move forward and claim their place in India Inc, they will have to settle for awards given in the female/woman category and not be considered at par with not only among successful entrepreneurs whom they match and even outperform but also be given a lone place in an all-male jury.