Poonam Barua - Leadership by Proxy: The Story of Women in Corporate India

LEADERSHIP BY PROXY

Poonam Barua has done something that I think few writers have been able to accomplish. She has provided her readers with a volume that has universal interest as it discusses major global issues involving women in the corporate sector. At the same time, the book is clearly rooted in the Indian experience and the volume is uniquely Indian.

Prof. Beryl Radin, Public Policy Institute, Georgetown University and Editor, Georgetown University Press Book Series

Leadership by Proxy The Story of Women in Corporate India is a pioneer in its space and lays the foundation for businesses who believe in balanced leadership and gender inclusive growth.

The Book bravely paves the way for women to move from corporate hallways to boardrooms by presenting a compelling case for rejecting homogenous corporate boards as a way for business to grow and mature. With its personal narrative, compelling case studies and anecdotes, the book perfectly captures the journey of women in corporate India as they progressively find their voices and redefine boardroom rules, gender sensitive leadership and team dynamics.

I strongly believe that the future of businesses will lie in the way they view gender inclusion for their own economic benefit. Values such as respecting gender-based differences will not just drive innovation for business but will also play a strong role in the progress of the society as a whole.

Richard Rekhy, Chief Executive Officer, KPMG

Poonam Baruas new book is a clearly written and well-informed discussion of the most important challenge facing Indian businesses today.

This is a must read for every business leader that wants to relook at the way they understand balanced leadership.It is time for Corporate India to move from anecdotal evidence to compelling and rigorous economic measurement and Poonams hard-hitting personal narrative style helps immensely!

Raj Raghavan, Head of Human Resources Amazon India.

Poonam Barua has led the dedicated and pioneering work done in India to create an ecosystem for women to serve on Boards.

With a zeal and enthusiasm that can only come from a very deeply felt connect, Poonam Barua has woven this seminal book which will be like a shining light for all engaged in corporate Boards related work.

India is emerging as a Governance Capital of the world and so this work has an International appeal.

Shailesh Haribhakti, Chairman, Haribhakti LLP

This book is the story of the efforts by Poonam Barua to create women leaders in corporate India, at a time when such leaders were few, inspired by the belief that India could only progress when 50% of the population got their share of leadership positions on merit, in an open transparent corporate culture. Of course reality was much different with the odds against women in their leadership journey. Poonam inspired a large number of women executives to work hard to reach the top, aspire for leadership positions, prove their worth against established belief that this aspiration was ahead of its time. All her extraordinary efforts seemed to have paid off with many corporates creating a more inclusive culture at the Board and other levels, to allow greater opportunities for women to rise to the top levels on their own merit.

T.V. Mohandas PAI, Chairman, Aarin Capital Partners.

LEADERSHIP BY PROXY

The Story of Women in
Corporate India

POONAM BARUA

First published in India 2015

2015 by Poonam Barua

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Notes:

This book is dedicated to the 500 million women of India and my courageous mother, Shakuntala

With warm appreciation to my dear son Bacchus Barua on whose small kitchen table this book was written in 45 days, overlooking the misty Grouse Mountain in Vancouver pushing his mother to cross the limits of star-shine

To my husband Shankar Barua who has taught me the meaning of being truly free..

Leadership by Proxy by Poonam Barua is a thought-provoking book that paves the way for creating a change in the approach of thinking of corporate India. The book puts forward best practices in the workplace that will support diverse corporate entities as a fundamental economic function to bring optimum rewards to business growth and societal progress.

This book is also a tribute to the 500 million women in India who are contributing their time, talent, skills, value, knowledge and dedication to make an honest contribution to enhancing business performance and improving the society in which we live, and to nation-building. Without the contribution of these women, India will find it difficult to grow the economy and increase the prosperity of its citizens.

There is growing evidence amongst the Fortune 500 companies, that diversity can become a critical tool for innovation and competitive edge, and this book highlights the need to put policies and mentoring programs in place to support that. Such initiatives could help improve the participation of women in senior management and board roles in corporate India which is currently around 510% and is much lower than the 2530% participation of their counterparts in Europe & North America.

The insights and perspectives in this book have been gathered from 7 years of hard and dedicated work of the Forum for Women in Leadership (WILL Forum). This forum was launched in November 2007 at the Infosys boardroom with a mission and vision for creating opportunities and a larger role for women for progressive national and corporate development. Today, the WILL Forum is inspiring thousands of women across India and the world, to aspire for better careers and better incomes and has over 650 WILL Mentees across reputed companies in India and multinationals. This is likely to provide a rich and robust pipeline of women leaders for the next phase of corporate growth.