There has been considerable focus recently in the media and in society at large on the emergence of women in leadership positions in the Indian corporate world. While women have played leading roles in medicine, education and the arts, the growing prominence of women in corporate India is a relatively new phenomenon. So, have women now come into their own in the workplace? Have we truly empowered women to enable them to rise to top positions based on merit and performance? Or is there still a glass ceiling?

I believe that we have made commendable progress towards providing opportunities to women. At the same time, the very fact that the rise of women to leadership positions is an object of wonder and curiosity underscores the fact that this is still relatively rare. The answer lies in creating a true equal opportunity workplace that is completely gender neutral: where management is in fact blind to gender while selecting people for job positions and promotions. For instance, we at the ICICI group have a large number of women in leadership positions-three out of five executive Board members, CEOs of two key subsidiaries, and several senior business and operational heads. But I notice the high proportion of women in our top management team only when outsiders point it out to me!

While it is a matter of pride for us that we have empowered our women colleagues successfully, this is not the result of a special focus on women employees but of a universal management and human resource philosophy applied to all our people, irrespective of whether they are men or women. Being an equal opportunity employer and a complete meritocracy, where performance alone is the criteria for recognition and growth, has produced a number of outstanding business leaders, both men and women. We just focus on selecting the best candidates for a particular job, and then offer them a fair atmosphere where merit is recognised and rewarded. We have done this year after year. As a result of this policy, we today have a large number of women in senior positions. They, in turn, have become the role models for other women in the organisation as well as potential women recruits who are attracted to ICICI Bank because they have seen equal opportunities in practice here, not just a slogan or mission statement.

The fact that the rise of women to positions of leadership is an object of wonder and curiosity underscores the truth that this is still relatively new and rare

As far as companies in general are concerned, I believe that more and more organisations are being run professionally-as meritocracies-where talent is spotted and rewarded regardless of the gender of the person. Working in a financial organisation, I have seen many leading companies from close quarters and this is a distinct impression I have come back with. Some recent trends have reinforced gender equality. In earlier years, the economy was dominated by manufacturing companies where women were confined to 'support' functions, generally at lower levels, because of perceived physical limitations. There were more men working in factories and therefore there were more men heading such organisations. However, with the increasing predominance of the services sector, there are no such perceived physical limitations any more, and women are shining through. This is not to say that women are confined to the services space-some of our leading industrial companies and companies in emerging knowledge sectors are led by women today. Women have conclusively proved that they display the full range of skills-technical, financial, managerial, communication, creative and leadership-needed to head an organisation.

While creating a gender-neutral workplace, we must not lose sight of the fact that women do have special responsibilities and therefore, special needs at times. Children and family responsibilities are the most obvious. Many women drop out of work typically when they have a child, and then many of them do not find suitable avenues to get back to work. This is an important factor behind the relatively low number of women reaching top levels in organisations. We need to understand this phenomenon properly and look at ways to ensure that we do not lose talented women because we are not supportive of their special needs. In India, we have the advantage of strong family support systems. But the mother is the anchor of the family in our culture, and increasing nuclearisation of families places greater demands on her. Organisations must be creative in addressing this issue, with flexible work schedules, longer leave periods and full use of technology to reduce the need for women to be physically present in the office for work. Most importantly, all this should not be seen as doing the woman a favour; it should be an integral part of the organisational process and should not impact performance evaluation or assessment of growth potential.

Looking once again at our own experience in the ICICI group, we believe that we have a strong performance-driven work culture that challenges our people to strive for higher levels of achievement. The demands placed on our people in terms of performance are independent of their gender. However, we also recognise a person's responsibilities and commitments towards family and society. This sensitivity enables us to be accommodative to a person's needs outside work. I must add that this also applies to all our employees, both men and women. I see many of my male colleagues taking time off to attend a child's school function or even to baby-sit while their wives are busy. A common sense-driven and sensitised approach has enabled us to retain employees and help them tide over certain periods of their lives, particularly for women, when personal life demands special attention. It gives us great satisfaction that most of our senior management today have young children, which means that we have indeed been able to have people rise to leadership positions while having full and happy family lives.

While focussing on equal opportunities at work, it is important to note that these are meaningless without equal opportunities at the grassroots level. A girl must receive equal care, opportunities for education, family and social support, and opportunities for employment and career growth. While we as a country and various corporate citizens are working towards this, a great deal needs to be done to create a larger socio-economic transformation-a society where all people have equal opportunities, and the best people reach leadership positions and 'call the shots'.