IIFL Wealth and Asset Management came up with a pool of 494 high net worth individuals (HNI) considered promoters of listed companies excluding PSUs and MNCs, with an individual listed wealth of Rs. 100 Crore. In the sample, only 32 women appear as promoters. That’s just 6.5 percent of the rich list.
There are 8 women playing an active role in the business entities in question. That’s 1.62 percent of the rich women actually leading. Rest of the female promoters numbering 24 could possibly be chalked up to white labelling. An active role constitutes those who are a chairperson, managing director or a director of the entity they are considered a promoter of.
Looking at the list, most of the HNI women come from old money families. Traditionally, the wealth has been inherited by birth or marriage.
There is possibly just one woman popularly called self - made in the sample. And that’s Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw.
Other troubling dataShreyasi Singh, a business journalist and director of careers at Vedica Scholars Programme for Women, has launched a book on the Indian new wealthy called, The Wealth Wallahs. She interviewed over a hundred HNIs with an investable wealth over 5 million dollars and says less than 10 percent of those were women.
She continues, “As someone who is passionate about professional women’s issues, I find it rather upsetting that I couldn’t have fair gender representation in my book - but it’s just so difficult to find HNI that are women.”
The simplest reason…Women don’t like talking about their money as much as men. “Perhaps it’s social conditioning, but I found it very hard to convince women to speak about their wealth for my research when I was writing the book. Women were more hesitant to reveal or publicise their wealth. It may be a reason you don’t see as many on published lists of the wealthy.” Reveals Ms. Singh.
In the following article Anu Aga, Rajya Sabha MP nominee and one of the richest women in India says, “In family owned businesses, very few women are allowed or encouraged to head organisations.”
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BW Reporters
Regina is a reporter for BW Businessworld. In her previous assignments, she has worked with Independent television Network as a news anchor and reporter in Sri Lanka
