Recognising the power of allyship in the corporate ecosystem, the DEI Ally of the Year category honours women leaders who are championing women and other marginalised genders in the workforce, mainstreaming the D&I lens, adopting D&I practices beyond tokenism, and taking measures to correct workplace biases.
ET SpecialMeet the first-ever nominees of this category: Geetika Mehta, Managing Director, Hershey India; Jaya Panda, Chief Learning & Development and Chief Diversity Officer, Tata Steel; Ruhi Ranjan, Senior Managing Director, Lead Europe Markets, Advance Technology Centre India, Sponsor – Inclusion and Diversity, Accenture; Sukanya Hazarika, Director, Khaitan & Co; Tina Vinod, Founder & CEO, Diversity Simplified.
- Geetika Mehta, Managing Director, Hershey India
As the Managing Director (MD) for Hershey India Private Limited (HIPL), which is a fully owned subsidiary of Hershey, with almost 1600 employees, Geetika Mehta supervises talent, culture, and capability building for company, which has resulted in Hershey India receiving the prestigious ‘Great Place to Work’ accreditation in 2023.
Under her leadership, Hershey India has increased its focus on D&I, with 43% of the leadership now comprising women, who have been instrumental in scaling the organisation to new heights. In a significant leap, Hershey India has also made progress in bringing diversity to the shopfloor.
In 2020, Hershey India took time to reflect, and engage employees across every function and level to understand how they were feeling, listen to their experiences and find out how the company could make the greatest impact on advancing inclusion in their workplace and our communities. Launched by Mehta in mid-2021, Hershey India’s five-year plan ‘The Pathways Project’ strives to make the workplace and communities even more inclusive.
Hershey India also launched the third edition of the HerShe Campaign. In a bid to make invisible women visible, Hershey India honoured SHEROES, who have displayed excellence by either taking the path less travelled or by simply creating a positive impact on people around them.
- Jaya Panda, Chief Learning & Development and Chief Diversity Officer, Tata Steel
Jaya Panda is the Chief Learning & Development and Chief Diversity Officer at Tata Steel. In addition to enabling knowledge and skill building of the workforce, Panda is responsible for enhancing employability and employment opportunities for the youth from the communities around Tata Steel’s operations through skilling efforts.
Panda has been vocal about correcting the gender imbalance when it comes to the manufacturing sector. The company also provided tech-enabled counselling services and interaction sessions for the mental well-being of their employees.
Tata Steel has been recognised as a ‘Gold’ employer for the second consecutive year by India Workplace Equality Index (IWEI) 2022. The Gold Award winner is assigned to employers who have successfully embedded LGBTQ+ inclusion in their policies, hiring practices, and external communication. As part of its D&I initiative, Tata Steel has onboarded 12 crane operator trainees from the LGBTQIA+ community at its plant in Kalinganagar.
- Ruhi Ranjan, Senior Managing Director, Lead Europe Markets, Advance Technology Centre India, Sponsor – Inclusion and Diversity, Accenture
Ruhi Ranjan is the Senior Managing Director, Lead Europe Markets, Advance Technology Centre India, Sponsor – Inclusion and Diversity at Accenture. In her current role, Ranjan is responsible for tech sales, delivery and profitability for all countries within the European continent, the United Kingdom and Ireland. Ranjan also leads the Inclusion and Diversity portfolio for Accenture in India.
In fact, she has been with Accenture for over 12 years across leadership roles that leveraged her exhaustive industry and technology experience. When starting her career as a trainee systems engineer, Ranjan found herself to be one of the very few women in her workplace; this challenging environment paved the foundation for her work in promoting diversity and inclusion efforts in the later years. This has also shaped her strong advocacy for creating an equal opportunity for people with disabilities and is ensuring that Accenture is geared up to meet the needs of a diverse and inclusive workforce. Accenture was awarded the IWEI 2022 Gold Employer.
- Sukanya Hazarika, Director, Khaitan & Co
Sukanya Hazarika is Director at Khaitan & Co and leads management of several practices and key client relationships across the firm. Previously, Hazarika practised law in India and the US and advised on deals including investments, M&A, buy-outs and secondary sales. She is qualified to practise in India, Massachusetts and New York.
She leads Khaitan & Co’s collaboration with ‘She Breaks the Law’, which is a global community of 3,500 women leaders in the legal industry and a platform designed for women leaders to engage in peer-to-peer learning and networking.
Hazarika launched ARISE (the DEl initiative of Khaitan & Co) in 2019. In the last 12 months, Hazarika has spearheaded ARISE to successfully run initiatives under each of its four DEI verticals: gender, LGBTQIA+, disability, and mental health. Recognising how gender diversity and inclusion intersects with other neglected areas of health and identity, such as mental health and disability, ARISE is designed keeping such nuances in mind. ARISE volunteers authored a compendium on legal framework applicable to the LGBTQIA+ community in India. The authors and Hazarika hosted its launch in New Delhi in collaboration with Advocate Saurabh Kirpal and Keshav Suri (Founder of the Keshav Suri Foundation).
Under the disability vertical, she led the collaboration with the ‘Yes We Too Can’ Trust. A team of 11 lawyers from KCO published a handbook on the rights of persons with disabilities and hosted several live Q&A sessions with the Trust for dissemination of information.
- Tina Vinod, Founder & CEO, Diversity Simplified
Tina Vinod, who has often spoken about how conscious and unconscious biases downplay women’s contributions and how such biases can often work in subtler ways, something which she has described as the ‘Snowball’ effect, helped start and operationalise the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) function in Thoughtworks India. Vinod, who comes with 22+ years of experience in helping organisations look at D&I as strategic investment has also headed DEI for Thoughtworks globally.
Today, she is the Founder and CEO of Diversity Simplified.
To her credit, ThoughtWorks won the NASSCOM Corporate Award for Excellence in D&I under the main category of Gender Inclusion.
Vinod has spearheaded various high-impact award winning programmes and initiatives. To name a few: The women-in-tech returnee programme, ‘Vapasi’, was specifically mentioned for its commitment to bridging the gender gap in tech; ‘Interning With Pride’, the first technical internship programme for those from the LGBTQ+ community, among others.
ETPWLA winner felicitation on August 4
Through this prestigious category, ETPWLA 2023 celebrates the trailblazers who are helping lead the DEI dialogue in India and shaping initiatives that are aimed at correcting gaps and a lack of access to equal opportunities, equal pay and equal rewards. Moreover, these individuals have walked the extra mile to raise awareness and integrate the DEI lens as a critical function and lens in designing corporate policies.
The final winners for each of the award categories will be announced at the Grand Felicitation Ceremony of the ETPWLA 2023 awards on August 4, 2023, at Mumbai.
To know more about the ETPrime Women Leadership Awards 2023, visit the ETPWLA website here. To find out the shortlisted profiles for all the award categories, click here.
For all the latest world News Click Here
