From the Godrej DEI Lab, welcome to India Included, here’s your host Parmesh Shahani.
Thanks to all our millions of podcast listeners. Because of your all love - thank you thank you thank you - we have become the number one podcast in this galaxy - what?! I mean ok - maybe that’s a stretch goal - but you can’t be a DEI professional in this world without dreaming big na!
This is India included - I’m your host Parmesh from the Godrej DEI Lab - and in this podcast we are speaking to inclusion changemakers in our country - and figuring out how they make a difference.
You know, something strange began to happen to the Indian economy at the beginning of this century. We were growing quickly. Education was improving. Families were having fewer children than ever before. But still, from 2000, women’s participation in the labour force began to decline. It fell so drastically that, at least on this economic indicator, India was being ranked with some of the world’s poorest countries instead of with other emerging markets.
Lots of research went into figuring out the problem. Was it that families with rising incomes stopped women from going out to work? Were women choosing to stay in school and college instead of joining the workforce? Or were Indian workplaces proving uniquely hostile to women?
That’s the very big background to the story of what I’m discussing with my guest today. It’s one of the defining stories of India in the 21st century –– Laapata Ladies from the Indian workforce. In some sectors, women never get a foot in the door at all. In others, they get married, move away, have children, and then find no way to get back to their careers. At the highest level in corporate India, it’s simply about who gets acknowledged as a leader, who gets to have power, and who gets to make a company’s biggest decisions – mostly men, haan. So - laapata ladies everywhere. What to do? I’m going to ask my guest this only on today’s podcast.
My guest today is Amrita Padda. Amrita Padda started out as a management trainee at Unilever, helped them manage a detergents factory, and went on to lead their HR transformation through South Asia and the Philippines. She then moved sectors to do path-breaking work at Airtel, where she is Chief Human Resource Officer. Many corporations in India dream of having a leader like her, because she is an innovator with ingenious solutions to structural barriers. To give you just one example, at Airtel she has decided to give jobs as well as pay for driving licences for women employees to get them into the workforce.
Amrita gets stuff done - under her leadership Airtel’s women representation grew from 10% to over 18% this year, and continues to climb up, just like their share price pretty much all over the past few months.
So Amrita, welcome to India included. I'm so happy to have you here on this podcast. We last met when you came over to Lonavla to hang out with our Godrej senior leaders, and now you're hanging out with the millions and millions of listeners who are listening to our award winning multi platinum complete rock star podcast. Welcome.
Thanks, Parmesh, equally delighted to be here with you, and kind of nervous after the last statement you've given about the podcast. So happy to be on this platform with you.
So I want to start off by talking about the early days, about origin stories, all superheroes, heroines is have them. So I just want to talk about, you know, your early childhood, what drew you? Did you grow up thinking, one day I'm going to be in the corporate world changing it like just give all our listeners the background?
So Parmesh, I had a very simple childhood in a city which is nice and green and with clean air, much unlike where I'm sitting right now. So I grew up in a small city called Chandigarh in the North of India.
Oh, my God, love it. La Corb
Yes, absolutely. So, no big stories around that, except for the fact that I grew up in a household where I never saw anyone go to work ever, right? I grew up with my maternal grandparents and my parents. We were all living together because my father had already retired from active service in the Indian Army, and we retired and came to Chandigarh when I was just starting formal school. So I think as a child, my big dream was just to work, to get out of Chandigarh. I don't know why now, because I just want to get back.
Better AQI for sure
My dream is to get back now, but my dream was to get out and go to workand be in the corporate world. I don't know what it meant, but I just felt that I needed to be out there. So it was as simple as that.
So then you got an MBA and all of that.
Yeah, actually, I didn't get an MBA right away. I started off in the hospitality industry. My first job is, was with the Taj Group of Hotels in banquets and serving in restaurants. So that was my first job, and I absolutely loved it. I worked with the Taj for six months during my industrial training, and thereafter as a management trainee in their hotels. I still call them my alma mater, because, you know, I hold that experience very dear, and that's what kind of drew me to HR, because it's the first time I saw I came face to face with the power of people, service, training, as we called it that time, and how training and people can build such a strong brand and culture of service. And that made me leave hotels and actually pursue Management in Human Resources.
You said it was the experience you had, but in terms of, you know what you've done in your career and just being a complete champion for representation, and specifically of women in the workforce. Was any of that rooted in your own personal experience of either sexism or misogyny?
So I think Parmesh, I saw a lot of inequality, and I think my story is of experiencing privilege along the way, right from my childhood - two sisters in the family and the way we were brought up, to being allowed, allowed to take choices, which was not done at that point of time. When I joined my first role in my first company, and the one before this, which is Hindustan Unilever, I went to a factory. In that factory, there was only one woman - that was me. I was hiring people from the local tribal groups out there, and they would come in and either touch my feet and call me Didi or teacher, because that's the only role that they knew a woman could play, apart from a family member, right? I think starting from there, I've done many roles in supply chain and factories. I think the one which really stands out in my mind is when I was coming back from my first maternity leave, and I was being offered the role of heading supply chain for my previous company, and which was a footprint of over 40 factories, and I remember speaking to the director of supply chain then, saying, you're offering this role to me and you're having this conversation, do you know I have a six month old child? And he looked at me "And?" and I said, I won't be able to travel, and he said, "And?" I said, Do you think I'm right for the job? He said, "Exactly. I think you're right for the job because I believe you'll be the most productive because you want to go back to that six month old." And he said, Amrita, never let your gender and your responsibilities because of your gender come in the way. I think that's what I mean by privilege. I've had great mentors. I've had great opportunities. I've moved across outside of India to three countries - two of them, where my husband followed me, and everywhere we would go, people would ask, so how come you're in this country? Did your husband's job bring you here? I was like, No, mine brought me here, and my husband's followed. I think it's a great space to be in. What I've experienced is very rare, and I want to make sure that a lot many other people around me get to experience this privilege.
Yeah, and not just because of luck, of having a good boss or a supportive husband but because of structural opportunities, right?
Absolutely
So then let's come into Airtel, because I want to spend a lot of time talking about your incredible work at Airtel that you've done. So how did you, you know, come to work at Airtel after such a long and successful career somewhere else?
I think it's the the organisation, the brand, and the people behind it, right? What stood out to me was their integrity, their courage and the respect that they had in the industry in India. I was coming back to India. The industry - the fact that it was unknown to me was a big positive, because I wanted to do that. You know, somewhere in my roots, I've always wanted to be in an Indian company. The charter that was explained to me by the CEO, and you know, all the people whom I met along the way, the jobs to be done on people, culture - and diversity being called out as a big job to be done. I think all of those were a big draw, and that's what drew me to Airtel.
Was it easy to let go?
I was living in Singapore. A lot of people asked me, What's wrong with you? You're leaving Singapore -
Singapore to Gurgaon?
I think for me, it was coming back to India and coming back to an Indian company. Not easy, but I'm so glad. There's not one day when I've doubted that decision of mine.
Yeah. And we're so glad because the work you've done is inspiring so many others to do the same. So you come back to India, it's a new sector. You know, what did you notice coming in with this completely fresh set of eyes, looking at women in telecom, for example, like, were there structural barriers?
Yes - So I think Parmesh, I came in with the mindset of thing that, you know what, there's nothing which is specific to an industry or to a country, right? Because I heard a lot, right? There was a lot of conversation about, hey, you're going to the telecom industry. Hey, it's not going to be easy, especially when it comes to the culture and diversity. It is really difficult. I believe - and as I saw the industry, I realised it's not about the industry. If at all, it could be about the life stage of the industry, and where the life stage of the industry was in India. I think, apart from that, telecom is as difficult, or as easy as it is for any other sector or for any gender, right? The problems that we need to solve for are not about the industry. They are more systemic, right? It's about the culture in our organisations. It is about the society that we live in, societal sort of culture and roles that are to be played. And I think what contributed more, or what contributes more to our industry - the telecom industry - is that it already has a male heavy workforce, and therefore that defines a dominant culture. And that's the big headwind. The headwind is a dominant culture and the larger societal culture. So that's really what it is. Otherwise, anybody talks to me about the industry, I say that you know what, you can't do the job. That's why you're giving excuses, that it's industry.
So how did you start answering these? How do you start tackling these challenges? What do you do first?
Yeah. I think the first thing is, you know, starting from the top right, which is making sure that the brief that has been given to me and that I've committed to is known across the board. Our leaders need to sign up for it - and signing up doesn't really mean sort of buying into it, right? Because here I knew I was playing against dominant logic, right? That this can't be done. Signing up actually means really using the predominant and the great culture that we have at Airtel around sort of making sure that anything that we commit to, we make it happen. We own it, right? And therefore, I really borrowed in and leaned in significantly to the ownership culture at Airtel, and made sure that everybody starts to own this and also that it's cascaded down to each person. So actually, de averaging, breaking down into targets, into what needs to be done and by whom, and really making sure that we have the systems and process to processes to make it happen.
Amrita, when you said, this can't be done - is it that Mr. Mittal said, I want to go this? I was that. I mean, was that one of the first discussions or Gopal like, you know, what is the this that you said I'm going to do?
So I think, of course, you know, Sunil and Gopal, both of them were 100% committed to it, right? And I think that this is making sure that we are a diverse and inclusive organization, and that this that can't be done is, Parmesh, what you spoke about earlier, right? That, you know, telecom can't have this kind of a diversity.
Tell us about some of the experiments that you did. I know that you've done something about, you know, hiring women after long career breaks, just to start with, but just tell us about the some of the cool stuff that you've done, because a lot of people listening are from the HR profession. We really want them to maybe just, you know, copy paste and start doing it in their own organisation.
No, sure. I think taking forward diversity and inclusion is no different from sort of either bringing building a brand or creating a business strategy, right? It's really about understanding the consumer, where you want to go. And I think as we started to work on it, and Parmesh I spoke about it earlier to you - we came across the four Ms, right? What are the major parts in a woman's life that can sometimes make them step back? And the four Ms for us was marriage, maternity, mobility and medical care for the family or elder care, right? And as we looked deeper into this, only one of these is biological, and therefore it's gender specific, which is maternity. The other three actually apply to all genders, but the burden is carried by women, yeah, right. And therefore the burden of marriage, right? I'm calling it a burden, because you get married, you need to leave the workforce. Mobility - my husband's moved somewhere. I need to move to come away from the workforce. My parents or in laws are sick. I need to leave the workforce right? This burden is really on the woman. And therefore, the first thing was saying that, why should only women need to deprioritise their career? And if you look at it pragmatically, okay, sometimes people need to take a break, but it should only be a break and not a full stop. And therefore enabling people to come back to their potential is the responsibility of the entire corporate ecosystem. And therefore we worked on two things. One was a Step-in program, which is about people who are coming back from a long break and making sure that they're able to come back. The second one was actually a remote workforce program, which was about reaching people who actually don't have access to job only because of where they're sitting and they cannot leave their cities. We enabled multiple people coming back to the workforce. But I think what I feel really good about, is the remote workforce unit that we set up. I have close to 50 offices - I call them offices in people's homes, because these are 50 women who are sitting in their homes in cities like Aligarh, Tumkur, Ratnagiri, Chhindwara, right? That's where they are sitting and they're working, and we've set up their offices in their home. They were not allowed to leave their homes, right? I met all of them. We had called them over to our office a couple of months ago, and they were all here, and Parmesh, you'd be surprised. One of them said, this is the first time I've left my house ever since I've gotten married.
Oh my God. They were not allowed because of because of family or other -
Yes, because of family - and now they've been working with us for close to a year, and when we call them here, their family said they could go, right. A couple of them spoke about how good they are feeling that their child is being looked after for those two days by their husbands, right? So I think some of them had to go back because they had come into the city to work, but their parents called them back to get married. They could never leave. All of these are engineers. They have done their education, right, and yet they could never really have access to a job, to independence - and that feeling of independence and that energy I got, sort of worked with them. I came back and told my team, we can't have 50 people remote working unit, right.
Has to be more.
Find me 500 jobs in the year, right? So right now, my team is going around finding 500 jobs in 500 homes that we can set up. Yeah,
No, that's amazing, because you're going to where the people are right, and we have these engineers who are unemployed, or this is under-employment, right. It's not like they don't have the talent. And while you're trying to challenge the circumstances, you're also recognising them sometimes and saying, we'll come to you. Another thing that you told us when you came hung out with us a few months ago, was about the driving licenses, and that's such a case study. Because, you know, for everyone listening, Amrita came and hung out with us at Godrej and spent half a day. And we were like, you know, these numbers seem very fake. Like, how do you go from 10 to almost 20% so soon, right? We are trying to go in some cases, you know, 1-2% is very high. And she just told us about all these interventions that she did, and together, they've created magic. So why don't you tell the listeners the driving license story?
Yes. I think very happy to share the story, not as happy as the progress that I've made on that story. So I'll be honest about that also, because I think this is where I'm really grappling with, why is it that people haven't taken up this policy? But let me share what the policy is, and probably by the time we meet next time, I'll be able to tell you how this is working.
Are the millions of listeners on our podcast - wait and see. Everyone will apply.
Yes. So when we were looking at I told my teams, right? I spoke to you about the de averaging, and I broke it down, saying, in Bihar, Jharkhand, I want x percentage women. In Mumbai, I want x 2x, percentage, right? In a Delhi, I want x+1, right? So on and so forth. When we started going and hiring people, these are frontline sales jobs, right? And one of our hiring criteria was that the people should be mobile, which means that they should be able to drive a two wheeler and go across, because it's the kind of a job where you need to go from place to place. And if you're not mobile and independent on your own, it doesn't work. And so, soon enough, my team came back and said, Hey, Amrita, we really want to hire women, but we can't hire. I said, Why? Because they don't have a driving license. I said, What do you mean? They said, even the folks who drive don't have a driving license. I said, Hey, I don't want people driving without a driving license, but even if that's okay, that's a very small percentage. So of course, I said, You know what? Show me the data. I always say, show me the data, right? And, you know, they pulled out - one of the team members pulled out data that the cumulative percentage of women license holders in India - and this was a study she pulled out from 2020, I couldn't find a newer study - only 6.3% of the license holders in India were women, you know? That's a crazy figure. Can you imagine? That means only men have licenses. That's the state of the nation, with respect to the independence, the value we give to our women doing anything apart from household work, right? And if that's the the number of percentage women we have, I can never hire. And therefore, I went ahead and said, Fine, if you find a person who's right on all other parameters, and it's only the right license holding her back, we will fund the licensing right. Let's hire the person. We will make sure that the for the first few months when the person doesn't have a license, we reimburse travel in some other way, and we will sort of have the person enroll, and we will reimburse the licensing fees also, so that's - Parmesh, that
So you paid for the driving lessons and everything else, right? And were there hundreds of women who joined just to get a license?
Actually no. That's why I say that this one hasn't worked well, and I need to get to the bottom of it, that why hasn't it worked well, right? Have we stopped looking ever since I brought in the policy, right? I've taken my eye off this ball, Parmesh, so probably I'll come back in a couple of months and tell you, and maybe your millions were listening, right? If you need a driving license, join Airtel
And a job. You'll get both with Airtel right
Yes.
It's very innovative. And again, I'll also be - really intriguing to see what's holding it from taking off, right? Yeah. Washrooms is something else that you did also, no?
Oh, yeah, I think something as simple as washrooms, right? I've had disturbing stories Parmesh, when I've traveled out into our market, right? Some women actually drink less water through the day as they're going into the market, because they know they won't have a washroom to go to, right. Where we have washrooms, and I've used some of them, they are such that nobody would ever enter. If you enter they're either unsafe because they're unhygienic, or they're unsafe just because they are in this corner where you would never have a woman go because you don't know who's lurking around the corners. Right? And we've moved our percentage of our stores without washrooms - dedicated washrooms, from close to 20% to now upwards of 80%. It has been a journey of actually doing few new leases and getting out of old leases that we have, tying up with malls, and also wherever we are looking for new real estate, making sure that these are places where there is either a dedicated washroom or access to a washroom, right? Some of my team members have also gone ahead and, you know, they've been able to sort of negotiate a deal with, you know, some small mall in some small town to say, hey, lock one of your washrooms and give the key to us, right, so that our women can access it. But, yeah, this is very basic. It's hygiene. And probably this is a larger industry partnership, right? Because washrooms is one thing - sometimes when you travel across, you hear women saying, Hey, I don't feel comfortable going and sitting at the distributor point and eating my meal, you know, because there are 10 men staring at me, right? What do you do about that? How do you give a safe place for a person to just, you know, sit back during that long work day? Yeah, right. So simple things like that place to rest, a place to refresh.
Yeah, basic stuff, not rocket science, but clearly it's taken decades to figure this out. But I guess, from you know, from what you're saying, what we are also finding everywhere else is, it's not that women are not ambitious or want to work or are not qualified, right? What you're saying is little nudges on infrastructure, little creativity in problem solving, and your numbers can double, right?
Yes. And Parmesh, washroom reminds me of another story, which is my story of that first factory I joined in. I was building it from brick and mortar stage. It was in a place which was a high rainfall area, and every day, when it was raining, I would take an umbrella and go to the security hut to use the washroom there, because the factory, which I was building myself, did not have a woman's washroom.
But you couldn't - you couldn't ask for it?
No, sometimes you're just so blind to things, right? We just take things as they are, and therefore to whoever's listening, I would say, question things, right? Even I fell into the trap of not questioning and just thinking that, hey, I'm the only woman. I'll go to the washroom which is in the security hut, right? You've got to question, you've got to demand - don't take things as they are.
Yeah, no, thank you. I wanted to ask you, a lot of your work, you know, at HUL and now, mostly with Airtel, has been around around gender and around women, yeah. Are you all thinking in terms of, you know, intersectionality, as to how gender intersects with other aspects of someone's life, or are you thinking of going perhaps beyond gender representation to other cohorts?
Parmesh, definitely. I think when it comes to diversity and inclusion, we can't just stop at gender right, but I think we are playing a catch up game there. That's one. And I think secondly, if we bring in gender sort of representation and gender diversity, all other forms of diversity can flourish, right? All research has shown us that. But I think as quick as we have been on our gender diversity and inclusion sort of story, and ramp up, we will move on to other forms of diversity soon enough. Yes, yeah.
I want to talk to you about leadership and women in leadership - you know, you're probably earning more now than you ever did in your entire life. You have much more power now. I just want to talk to you about, you know, does your gender matter any differently? Are you treated differently when you walk into boardrooms because perhaps you might be the only woman? So you know, how is it for you? And beyond that, what do you think about, you know, women in leadership positions in your industry in general, as to how you widen that? Because a lot of what we've spoken about are widening, say the, you know that the bottom end of the funnel, but what about it at the top?
Yes. So, I'll take this as two questions, Parmesh. I think the first one on leadership, right, you're absolutely right. Everything that we've been working on here, has largely been around really widening the base, right? And I call it getting the critical mass, because I feel that continuing to be a minority, and therefore the majority defining the culture is not enough. At the same time, I think it's really important that there are women and there is equal representation of women in leadership positions also. At Airtel, we have a distance to go out there. I think there have to be more folks in the workforce and in leadership teams, because we need to go away from talking about breaking the glass ceiling, right? Why should that kind of a term be there, right? It has to be with the lens of customers and customer obsession and every business to know that unless we have a diverse team, we don't have a diverse thinking machinery, and therefore we can't serve our customers well. So all eyes on leadership roles as I'm getting into towards the second half of this financial year for me, but also, as I'm planning the next year. It's really about ensuring that we have the role models for women to follow within the organisation, within Airtel. So that's that's one part of it. I think the second part is about sort of me as a leader, and what do I really face? I think, as much as I would love to think that gender doesn't matter, right - gender matters, right - and I think it matters both in a good way and in a not so good way, right. Both men and women and all genders bring the best to the table. Personally, when I look at it, I do find sometimes people try to be a little gentler with me. And to me, it comes across as patronising at times, and I do not like it. Right? I absolutely do not like it. So that's one feeling that I have at times, even in my position. I sometimes find myself alone or isolated. You spoke about it. You walk into that room and you feel - of course, now not the only woman, but amongst only few women, it is not just lonely, but it's also isolating at times. I find myself demanding more from myself and from my teams, right, and I think that's a big one, because while I demand more, I find myself demanding less for myself as against my peers, right? And I feel - would that come in the way? And we keep reading about that, raise your hand, ask for more, right? But I do often - when I'm sitting across the table, I'm thinking, Oh my God, why are these people asking for so much for themselves? And I'm like, oh gosh, is it gender at play? I don't know, right. I oftentimes feel, Parmesh, and I think it's just not a feeling - I think I know that I work doubly hard, probably than many others on the table, and when I say doubly hard, I know that I'm a primary caregiver, right? I have the best husband, the most supportive, but the gender gap is so much, and I am the primary caregiver, and I do my role, and it takes double the effort. So all of this just makes it tiring at times. So yes, there's a difference still.
Yeah and with - I mean, how does one get out of it, right? Indra Nooyi has spoken about it. Everyone has spoken about the pressure, the challenge. It's exactly the same to me as a queer person at a senior leadership level. You know, it's isolating, as you said. It's lonely. Sometimes you have to explain things which might seem really basic. One is often holding back. For example, once at a work life balance, conversation - panel discussion, there were three other people on the panel from the organisation, and they spoke for about 45 minutes on family life, and, you know, work life. I spoke about five minutes about my partner and you know, our life. And the feedback I got after that was, why do you have to talk about gayness all the time. And it was quite funny, because I was like, but - I was like, darling, you spoke about straightness for 45 minutes. So I was like why are five minutes of this surprising to you? Because, you know, I'm listening to hours and hours of your straightness, right? So again, if there were others, I guess that - I mean, that's the point. If there were many people talking about queerness all the time, it would be normal. So are you doing anything in terms of mentorship, in terms of, you know, grooming that next level of Airtel leaders, so that the next generation of Amritas are not so lonely? What are you doing as a mentor in this?
Yeah, yes. We have women leadership programs. Of course, there have always been questions that, why are there women leadership programs - aren't men also leaders? But I think I always say that I will always be unapologetic about being discriminating towards -today women, tomorrow any other cohort that we are looking at. Because I think it's really about equity, right? It's not about equality, right? So Parmesh, a lot of work on ensuring that our women have mentors and/ or coaches also, where women need need coaches from outside the organisation. Significant amount of time resource being put behind sort of women leadership programs and making sure that we bring together sort of the strength in numbers and the women leaders that we have, I do spend quite a bit of time myself in mentoring women, not just within the organisation but outside the organisation also. And I think in my mentorship, I make sure that I'm not just sharing my journey, but I'm making sure that I'm asking a lot of questions, making women think, act, demand - and I think most important, a lot of my mentorship is focused on valuing ourselves, and therefore for the women leaders to value themselves and their unique style of leadership and not get the trap of being a leader like any other leader, and therefore, while we have women leaders, we realise it's all with masculine traits, right. That's what we don't want.
And you know, a lot of us are trying to do that, right? So whether it's us, whether it's Airtel, with it's all the other people we've spoken to - and there seems to be a DEI kind of moment in the world right now. I just want to talk to you about, you know, places where DEI is done almost as a formality. So I want to talk to you about, you know, your feelings about this, because I'm - as I'm becoming older, I'm becoming impatient, you know. How long will we take for some of this to happen? You know, and so I just want to ask you, how do you convince people, maybe at Airtel or outside that - say, with women also, we don't just want cupcakes on Women's Day.
No, that's the most irritating thing that goes around. So I think, the not genuine DEI, the tick in the box DEI - I think it shouldn't be done. It's the biggest disservice we can do to anybody. Right? The way to do DEI is really to make sure that it's integrated into our systems and processes - not just people, systems and processes, but also business. Parmesh, you brought forth a really important point, which is saying, what's the kind of leadership behaviors we value? And therefore, do we start looking for that? I think simple things around that, saying, just as an example, in our performance management system, we must make sure that we are evaluating and we are looking at statistics around top performers for women versus men, representation of you know, is it the right ratio or not? Secondly, I think we do this at Airtel, which is saying that a woman, when she attrites, is a regretted attrition for us - irrespective of performance, right? Because the belief behind that is that she's anywaysworking around against a dominant culture, right, and a dominant expectation from her. So in men, when they attrite, only my top performers are considered regret. Women - all are regret. And these are just simple examples of how we can build in diversity into our systems and processes, our day to day work, right, also into our business, right? What do our campaigns look like? What do our apps look like? Right? Are they inclusive or not, right? So I think those are some of the things that can be done. Celebrations should not be done, like Women's Day. If they are done, like my team really wanted to celebrate - I said, Hey, celebrate. But you know what, why don't you bring in some people from the police force and speak about some women from the police force and speak about women's safety? Yeah, I said that's a celebration I'd love to have on Women's Day, right? And we actually did that, right? So, so I think we can have a good mix of everything, where we are also engaging people and sort of celebrating certain days, but in the right manner, but more importantly, embedding diversity into our systems, processes, people and businesses.
That's perfect. I want to end by asking you, what gives you hope for the future? Are you happy at almost 20? You went from 10 to 18%+. What's the next? 50%? What are you thinking of, both in terms of the data driven targets, as well as the, you know, inclusive Airtel and the inclusive India we want to see?
So I think Parmesh, firstly, I think the number count for me doesn't stop till it's equal, right? Same as - Yes, so 50, right. So I think that's where the number count stops. What gives me hope? I'm interest intrinsically an optimistic person, right? I'm both optimistic and realistic at the same time - optimistic in sort of my vision and my targets, but I think realistic around what it will take to drive and execute, right? And therefore, I keep my two, sort of two hands in the in these two things, which is about making sure that I'm optimistic when I'm visioning, but absolutely making sure that I'm backing it up with really, everyday, great execution around what needs to be done, right? What gives me hope is - you're rightly saying from sub 10 to when we met at your Godrej event, I was at a 15-16%. Today, when I'm speaking to you, we are at an 18.5. I'm certain I'll end the year upwards of 20, and and we will keep going. I think the numbers are bringing in the critical mass for us to really change the culture of the organization, not just for women - today for men and women, but tomorrow, for me, to embrace all forms of diversity and become a more inclusive organisation, right. So that's, that's really sort of what, what we are working towards. So I'm hopeful, and I'm doing what I do best. I'm manifesting - and manifesting an equal world, because that's the only way to be.
Thank you, Amrita. And you know, for me, I'm so excited as we end this episode to listen to this. Because, you know, you all are now a basic need provider - telecom is a basic need, as much as food, clothing, shelter, and, you know, not just in Gurgaon, but all over the India, clean air - and you all are providing that. So to imagine not just a gender balanced Airtel, but a rainbow Airtel, an accessible Airtel, a comprehensively inclusive Airtel, what that would do for you, for telecom, but for the rest of the country as well, is super exciting. So thank you so much with all my love for being part of India Included in this season.
And thanks a lot, Parmesh and I'll always keep looking at you and the Godrej group for my inspiration, and happy to walk hand in hand on this journey.
And vice versa - and to all the millions listening, join us on India Included. We are manifesting. We are womanifesting. We are co-creating a better India together. So join us on our journey. And like to me, that's what Viksit Bharat really is - a better Bharat, a more Inclusive India, one where everyone can flourish. So thanks everyone who's listening.
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