Indian businessmen promoting their wives as deadline looms for every board to have one female director
Deadline looms for all Indian firms to include at least one female director but some owners are complying by simply appointing their spouses
As Indian companies scramble to meet a deadline to appoint women to their boards, some wealthy business owners have a solution that meets the letter if not the intention of the law: appointing their wives.
India's market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, has set a final deadline of April 1 for all of the country's listed companies to name at least one female director. In the 12 months after the SEBI order was first announced in February 2014, only 580 companies out of thousands had appointed women, according to local reports. More than 80 appointments were family of company owners.
India's wealthiest are setting a high-profile example of applying the letter of the law. Mukesh Ambani, the second-richest Indian who heads the petrochemicals to telecoms conglomerate Reliance Industries, appointed his wife Nita Ambani to the company's board.
Industrialist Gautam Singhania named his wife Nawaz Singhania as a non-executive director of his company, Raymond Group, one of the world's largest textile manufacturing conglomerates. Both women have business experience though not directly applicable to overseeing a conglomerate.
Globally, women lag far behind men in making their way to top management positions and corporate boards. But the situation is dire in Asia where among the leading economies China tops the list with women making up 8 per cent of corporate board directors. Japan with 2 per cent and South Korea with 1 per cent are at the bottom of the heap. In India, women are 5 per cent of directors.
"You can have as many laws put in place, but unless the promoter or the management of the company wants to bring about a change and better governance, there are always ways to comply in letter, but not in spirit," said Pranav Haldea, managing director of Prime Database.
There are about 9,000 listed companies in India. The Bombay Stock Exchange, which is the biggest Indian bourse, has about 4,200 active member companies. The rest are divided between the NSE and a clutch of smaller regional stock markets.