Friday 1 December 2017

Leadership Programs Helping Female Leaders Thrive in India's Start-up Scene

While women represent a significant portion of the workforce in India, only a small number of them have progressed to leadership positions in business. According to data from the National Sample Survey Organization, 14 percent of businesses in the country have women at the helm, meaning the breakthrough on women-led businesses has some way to go.

It's not just in business where female representation is an issue, as even the start-up industry is suffering with low numbers – women account for just 9 percent of Indian start-up founders. Gender discrimination and cultural biases are some of the reasons attributed to the low levels of female leadership in the country. To combat this, some in the entrepreneurial community have started leadership initiatives aimed at encouraging the development of female entrepreneurs.

Given that women are a potential source of talent that can help take India's entrepreneurial scene to the next level, such initiatives are vital and welcome. Henner Diekmann, a partner at Diekmann Associates (based in Southern Africa), is among many investors who are encouraged by the growth of leadership development programs aimed at advancing women.

The following are some of the initiatives established to lead this cause.

SAHA Fund

SAHA Fund believes in discovering and developing the untapped potential in women and making them part of the top leadership in economic development. It sets out to invest in companies that employ a majority of women in its workforce or create a product aimed at women, with many of these falling within sectors such as mobile, analytics, healthcare, food technology, social media, and technology.

Raising capital is one of the biggest challenges faced by women, a hurdle that has not been helped by the investor perception that women lack the ambition to lead start-ups. It's a notion that SAHA Fund works hard to dispel, with good results. Fitternity, a fitness aggregator supported by SAHA, has raised millions of dollars in funding rounds, attracted around 300,000 users and reporting annual sales of about $3 million. Founder Neha Motwani credits SAHA Fund for putting the start-up in a position to succeed.

Through its own research, SAHA Fund has found that large companies with more women in leadership positions perform relatively better financially, posting 41 percent higher returns investment (ROI), and 56 percent better operating results. In the technology sector, women-led private Technology companies achieve 35 percent higher ROI and 56 percent higher revenue when the venture is backed.

SonderConnect

SonderConnect is a non-profit trust that's headed by four women who believe in nurturing women-led start-ups in India. Their goal is to grow these ventures into highly successful companies and they've focused on giving this group of women founders the knowledge and tools to succeed. SonderConnect aims to play a significant role in building up female entrepreneurs, with the goal of eventually raising up a generation of successful female entrepreneurs.

One of the areas that SonderConnect is working to improve is getting women to highlight their accomplishments – both personal and professional. Investors tend to be more open to founders who are confident and sincere in their ambitions. SonderConnect facilitates workshops and mentorship programs to help start-ups fine-tune their pitches. Facilitators include legal experts, marketing professionals, and executives from some of the biggest brands in the country.

Anita Borg Institute (ABI)


The Anita Borg Institute (AnitaB.org) is an initiative that seeks to include more women in the growth of India's technology start-up scene. The organisation connects and guides women in technology, supporting them through a number of programs that help them learn and develop their potential. 

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