As per a 451 Research study, India, today has a large influx of women either pursuing education or building careers in the tech sector owing to the government’s diverse initiatives, persistence and constant encouragement. Consequently, women now make up nearly 34 percent of the IT workforce with the majority of these workers under 30 years of age. The country has achieved almost a 50-50 gender parity rate in terms of STEM graduates.
Besides, according to Skillsoft’s 2022 Women in Tech Report—India Region, which surveyed nearly 1004 women tech professionals, there are about seven percent of women at executive-level positions while 13 percent at the managing director-level position in the STEM sector. These are the women who have been able to push through systemic barriers and institutional biases that have often hindered their career advancement and leadership access. Their story is, therefore, worth being told.
These women can perhaps serve as role models for other rising young women in tech and encourage them to continue striving and aspiring for leadership positions, further inspiring them to work hard and climb the tech ladder despite the numerous challenges that they are constantly being confronted with.
These inspirational women include:
- Debjani Ghosh
Debjani Ghosh is a veteran of the technology industry and is serving as the president of the National Association of Software & Services Companies (NASSCOM) since April 2018—the very first female president to serve the organisation over the past 30 years.
She is in fact, a staunch supporter of bringing gender diversity in India’s corporate sector and was the first woman to lead Intel India, Manufacturers’ Associate for Information Technology (MAIT). During her illustrious career that has spanned over the past two decades, Debjani has held diverse leadership positions across geographies in South and Southeast Asia at Intel and is a firm believer in the ability of technology to improve people’s lives and livelihoods.
She has also been the driving force behind “Think Digital, Think India’s” strategy and redefined the meaning of women leading within India’s tech field.
- Sumathi Bhaskaran
Sumathi Bhaskaran is the Senior Director-Software Engineering at Lowe’s India where she is responsible for the transformation of systems, services, and applications used by numerous customer service associates. As a part of this position, she also plays a central role in transforming legacy systems with new systems, CRM, conversational AI with natural language understanding, and workforce management.
She has undoubtedly added many feathers to her hat over the past 25 years in the tech sector, beginning her journey as a software developer, and assisting in the transformation of retail and travel/hospitality organizations while working at leading companies like Tesco and SapientNitro.
Sumathi remains passionate about creating an environment that retains as well as sustains women in the field of tech.
- Mira Maruti
Mira Maruti is currently serving as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at OpenAI, which is arguably one of the hottest and most talked about artificial intelligence firms in the world that created ChatGPT.
As a mechanical engineer, Mira has previously worked at companies like Goldman Sachs, Zodiac Aerospace, Leap Motion, and Tesla. She joined OpenAI in 2018 as the Vice President of Applies AI and partnerships, and then moved up the ladder to become a Senior Vice President of product and partnerships in the company. In just ten months, Mira became the CTO. Ever since then, OpenAI has announced several projects like DALL.E 2 and ChatGPT.
Mira has regularly called for regulation in AI saying that it isn’t too early for policymakers to get involved in AI.
- Sandhya Devanathan
Sandhya Devanathan—an engineer by profession—joined Meta in 2016 and was appointed as the Head and the Vice President of Meta India in November 2022. With over 20 years of experience across sectors including banking, technology, and payments, she has been responsible for e-commerce initiatives in South-East Asia and served as the company’s Vice-President of gaming for APAC.
During the course of her career, Sandhya has worked with some of the top-most companies across the world such as Citi Bank, Standard Charted Bank, etc. and has also served as the board member of several organisations including Pepper Financial Services Group, National Library Board (Singapore), Singapore Management University, Ministry of Information and Communications (Singapore), and Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society.
- Amrita Gangotra
Amrita is a veteran of the tech industry who has achieved splendid success in her entrepreneurial journey. She founded a boutique consultancy and advisory company in January 2019— ITyukt Digital Solutions—which specializes in IoT, 5G, and AI/ML-based digital transformation for enterprises. The firm also provides growth strategy advice to tech SMEs and start-ups.
During her career, she has used technology to drive business performance and deliver value in telecommunications, IT services and FMCG sectors, and has held key roles in business-impacting transformation initiatives. For instance, Amrita was instrumental in negotiating a revue-share IT outsourcing deal for Bharti Airtel with IBM. In addition, she was also responsible for the launch of a tech platform for Airtel Payment, creating the IT platform for Global Enterprise business at Vodafone.
Amrita further played a significant role in the CWW M&A integration, 4G network roll-out, and preparing for the 5G introduction. Her extensive knowledge of IT transformation in the telecom, FMCG, and ITES sectors has made her a sought-after professional in the tech industry.
The writer is a Visiting Fellow with the Observer Research Foundation. Some of her works have appeared in South China Morning Post, The Hindu, Firstpost, Hindustan Times, The Diplomat, The Toronto Star, among several others. She tweets at @akankshakhullar. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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