CII Centre for Women Leadership

Promote DEI learnings during leadership training programmes can help management overcome unconscious bias at the workplace.

Set measurable gender hiring and promotion targets across business units.

At a leadership level, a commitment towards promoting gender diversity in leaders can promote the hiring of women across different levels of employment.

Ensure fair performance appraisals during maternity leave, extend parental benefits equitably, provide counselling and mentorship support, and implement flexible work arrangements to retain women through key life transitions.

Select Examples:

Tata Consultancy Services

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)

Sector: Information Technology and Consulting Services

Challenge Identified: Low representation of women in leadership within the technology sector and the need to embed diversity and inclusion as a core organisational capability rather than a compliance exercise.

Organisational Levers:

TCS adopted an integrated diversity strategy embedded across talent processes. Key initiatives include Network to Win (nWin) mentorship covering nearly 80% of women employees, and iExcel, a leadership development programme for high-potential women managers.
The company strengthened inclusive dialogue through internal social platforms, invested in continuous digital skills training, created women-focused workplaces such as an all-women delivery centre, and expanded STEM outreach and mentoring initiatives to strengthen long-term women talent pipelines.

Impact: Women constitute over one-third of TCS’s global workforce (134,000 employees), positioning it among the largest private-sector employers of women in STEM globally.

Source: Tata Consultancy Services. (2018, March). How tech companies should pursue diversity at the workplace-a TCS case study.

HFW

Sector: Legal Services

Challenge Identified: Gender equality in senior lateral hires and internal promotions.

Intervention: In 2020, Singapore based law firm HFW launched a new gender equality strategy to ensure that women employees would account for at least 40% of all senior lateral hires and internal promotions by April 2023.

Organisational Levers Used:

Measurable gender hiring and promotion targets
Adoption across all global industry groups
Associate Leadership Programme

Impact: By 2025, female fixed-share partners rose from 11% to 18%, two-thirds of internal promotions to equity partner in the most recent year were women, and women make up approximately 90% of participants in the firm’s Associate Leadership Programme.

Read more at: Boston Consulting Group & G20 EMPOWER. (2021). EMPOWER playbook 2021: Best practices on gender equality in the workplace.

iThink Logistics

Sector:Logistics / Tech-enabled Supply Chain

Challenge Identified: Gender disparity in tech-driven roles in the logistics start-up ecosystem.

Intervention: iThink Logistics consciously built a gender-diverse team to address this issue, with the belief that women bring operational resilience and nuanced problem solving to logistics. The company has placed women in non-traditional logistics roles such as product management and technology-areas often underrepresented by women.

Organisational Levers Used:

Mentorship programs
Inclusive leadership
Policies that prioritise flexibility

Impact: 35% of leadership and operational team are women

Read more: Chatterjee, R. (2025, May 25). Why are women on the sidelines of India’s $215 bn logistics boom. India Transport & Logistics News.

Cummins India

Sector:Engineering / Manufacturing

Challenge Identified:Underrepresentation of women in STEM and professional engineering roles.

Intervention: Cummins India has a program called #WomenPowerCummins that aims to inspire women and girls to pursue careers in STEM. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is a fundamental value at Cummins India which has driven their success.

Organisational Levers Used:

Focus on safe work environment
Equal opportunities for development and growth
Emphasis on diverse and uniquely talented people
Women in senior leadership acting as role models and mentors

Impact: More than 40% of IT roles and 35.59% of all professional engineering roles are held by women. 42% of senior leadership team positions are held by women who act as role models and mentors for women in the industry.

Source: CII - Centre for Women Leadership. (2024). Good practices compendium 3.

Dana TM4 India

Sector: Electrical systems manufacturing

Challenge Identified: Poor gender ratio among employees

Intervention: Dana TM4 set up an Inclusion & Diversity Committee in 2020 to improve the ratio of Female Workforce—both at Shop Floor and in the White-Collar category.

Organisational Lever:

Inclusion & Diversity Committee
Managers are sensitized on "Overcoming Unconscious Bias"
All JDs, policies and guidelines are gender neutral

Impact: The diversity ratio improved from 24 per cent in 2020 to 38 per cent in 2023. Almost 50 per cent are diversity employees in plants across all operations.

Source: CII - Centre for Women Leadership. (2024). Good practices compendium 3.

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