CII honours top firms for gender parity as inclusion becomes core to business growth strategy

The awards honoured organisations, including Hindustan Zinc Limited, Bharti Airtel, Diageo India, Mondelez India, Hindustan Unilever Limited, Sumerpur Factory and Godrej Properties Limited, who have translated intent into measurable outcomes by strengthening leadership pipelines, improving workforce participation and integrating gender parity into market-facing strategies.Addressing the event, Rumjhum Chatterjee, Chairperson, CII Centre for Women Leadership, said, "There is growing alignment between policy direction and business priorities on women's economic participation. Companies that move early and decisively on inclusion are seeing tangible gains not just in representation, but in resilience and performance."Vaishali Nigam Sinha, Co-Chair, CII Centre for Women Leadership, noted that "As sectors such as platform work, healthcare and clean energy expand, the focus is shifting from entry-level participation to creating pathways for advancement. This is where both policy frameworks and corporate action will need to converge more sharply,"Seema Arora, Deputy Director General, CII, said, "India's growth ambitions will increasingly depend on how effectively we bring more women into the workforce and enable their advancement. Industry has a critical role to play in building inclusive talent pipelines, particularly in emerging sectors such as manufacturing, energy and new-age services."Uber, Urban Company, Kotak Mahindra Bank and KPMG India were among other participants at the Summit, which discussed challenges including access to finance, safety concerns and retention, along with solutions to address these barriers.

CII said discussions underscored that as India aims to sustain high economic growth, gender parity is moving from the margins to the mainstream of economic strategy, driven by both policy signals and business imperatives. (ANI)