Why Are Women Leaders Difficult To Find In The EV Space?

India is witnessing a significant shift from the usage of fuel-based vehicles to electric vehicles. With the government pushing for more than 50 percent of vehicles to be EVs by 2030, the Indian market, with a population of close to 1.4 bn and still counting, is being looked upon as the next big business destination, now that the country has pushed the UK to become the fifth biggest economy.

This has attracted not only local manufacturing companies to tap the potential market but also excited global businesses to invest heavily for long-term returns. Hence, the need for superior leadership talent for these organisations has skyrocketed over the last year.

While the shift to EV took some time, the talent identification process almost started immediately as organisations realised the importance of having, ‘new-age leaders’ at the helm to drive business growth. One of the trends we observed was the movement of talent from the industrial and manufacturing space to EVs considering the alignment between the two verticals.

Organisations – large and small, global, and local all began to tap into this talent pool, apart from looking at ex-pats for specific technical and innovative roles to stimulate growth. With this shift also came the challenges that these industries were facing – the diversity issue of having more women leaders at the top. Most of the manufacturing setups, while having claimed to increase the diversity quotient and wanting to hire women leaders, have not really been able to bridge the gender gap. Some of the reasons remain the old-school thought process, whereas quite a few are to do with the changing market landscape and business needs.

A quick and preliminary mapping of some of the top companies in the EV space, specifically looking at their directors and C-suite levels, showed a distribution of around 12 – 15 percent women against 80 percent odd men in leadership roles.

The following are the reasons:

1) Organisations still continue to look for talent with a preference of having male candidates considering the nature of the job being fast-paced and manufacturing-oriented.

2) The need for constant travel considering the manufacturing units of such entities are in remote locations, or sometimes even the base setup of the offices could be in non-metro regions, making it difficult for women leaders to shift.

“A quick and preliminary mapping of some of the top companies in the EV space, specifically looking at their directors and C-suite levels, showed a distribution of around 12 – 15 percent women against 80 percent odd men in leadership roles.”

3) The motivation for women leaders to join such organisations considering the preference for promotion or new roles still being gender averse.

4) The shift from pure vanilla industrial/manufacturing to an EV setup has not been of interest to some of them, and hence, they prefer to look at opportunities in a similar domain.

5) Impact of the pandemic where still quite a few women leaders double-hat as professionals and homemakers. While the latter was always there, the pandemic has brought in its own set of challenges for the working woman.

While the above are some of the trends that were being observed over the past year, we do see the winds of change blowing now. On specific leadership engagements with client partners, we see a distinct shift towards trying to hire women leaders. From that perspective, at least, we seem to be making some good progress. It would be interesting to see some high profile moves happening in this space with women being in the driver’s seat and actually running businesses. That itself will be an inspiration for many and we could eventually see a high diversity quotient in this sector.

Some of the more progressive organisations and also international businesses setting up operations in India are ‘bucking the trend’ in terms of diversity quotient, and at the same time, a lot of women leaders are also looking to capitalise on the potential opportunity presented by the EV sector.  It has also helped that the auto sector has been fairly progressive in terms of unconventional hiring over the years and today it is predominantly these businesses that have further diversified into the EV space.

We estimate the percentage of women leaders taking on larger roles in the EV space to go up to 30 percent in the next 2 years. Being part of a firm which has a strong focus on the Renewable and EV space, we do see these statistics becoming real, keeping in mind the changes that we are already witnessing.

About Author:
Jyoti Bowen Nath, Managing Partner, Claricent Partners: With an overall experience of over 20 years, Jyoti is an experienced Executive Search Consultant in India. She is responsible for the overall business growth of the company and is also actively involved in daily company operations.