Unity in diversity. That is how Sonal Bansal describes her experience at up! SURGE, a three-week-long curated learning journey for women in leadership roles.
A flagship program offered by XLRI’s Centre for Gender Equality and Inclusive Leadership (CGEIL) in collaboration with XL4W, an international alumni chapter of the institute.
“There were so many people with different backgrounds and cultures, but with one purpose: to learn,” says Ms. Bansal, who was present at a structured networking event held at the Taj Yeshwanthpur in Bengaluru on August 17, part of the larger up! SURGE programme, which has worked with fourcohorts of women so far.
And yes, despite the diversity — whether it is age, background, industry, or function — the challenges most female leaders face are essentially the same. “We can’t deny the fact that there is a huge gap between men and women in the workplace,” points out Ms. Bansal, Senior Manager, Accounts and Finance, at Birla Corporation Limited, Kolkata.
Addressing this gap is the raison d’être of the entire initiative, starting from the establishment of XL4W, back in 2020. “When the Annual Gender Gap report was published by the World Economic Forum in 2021, where data is published on women’s participation in the workforce and other issues related to the gender gap, economic participation, educational attainment, etc, India was ranked 140 out of 156 countries, a dismal rank for us,” says Shabari Madappa, the vice-president of XL4W and part of up! SURGE’s core team. The report triggered a conversation on the XLRI alumni group, gathering steam and snowballing into an entire movement, says Ms. Madappa, a Bengaluru-based leadership facilitator & executive coach. “There were such passionate debates and conversations,” she remembers, adding that many alumni members wanted to commit and contribute to the cause.
In discussion with Pankajam Sridevi, Managing Director, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (India) | Photo Credit: HANDOUT E MAIL
This led to the formation of XL4W - XL for Women, by the end of 2020. According to the XL4W website, the team then reached out to XLRI, the institute from which they had all graduated, sharing a concept note on the need to drive women’s participation in the workforce and highlighting how XLRI could help with it. The XLRI Director was a strong supporter of the movement which embodies the XLRI spirit, ‘For the greater good’, and launched a dedicated Center for Gender Equality & Inclusive Leadership on campus on March 8th, 2021” recalls Ms. Madappa. The vision was this: “To significantly increase the participation of women in the workforce in India, to 50% in the next decade.”
Focus on three things
Ms. Madappa says that the initiative focuses on three things—awareness-building, intervention, and advocacy for women in the workforce. “Of course, these issues aren’t just restricted to women in the corporate sector,” she says. “But since we have an in-depth understanding of this sector, we decided to start there.”
up! SURGE core team with XLRI director Father Casimir | Photo Credit: HANDOUT E MAIL
up! SURGE, one of the many interventions spearheaded by the CGEIL- XL4W collaboration brings together senior female leaders from organisations across corporate India, seeking to help them evoke their dreams, navigate their way towards them and encourage them to pay it forward, she says. “This is our first hybrid run of the program,” says Diya Kapur Misra, a leadership impact coach and DEI champion, and the Program Lead for up! SURGE since its inception, who also played a vital role in designing the program.
150 participants of the 4th cohort of up!SURGE and the XL4W core team | Photo Credit: HANDOUT E MAIL
According to her, the methodology of the program has multiple facets to it. These include speaker sessions and panel discussions with accomplished women leaders who’ve had unique journeys to the top, which they share candidly with the participants; facilitated sessions where participants are divided into carefully curated, diverse smaller groups and encouraged to swap stories, learnings and experiences with their peers - all enabled by a coach; conversations and self-reflection about how one can amplify impact, create a legacy and pay it forward; opportunities to build strong peer relationships, and a structured session as well as organic opportunities to network within the cohort and with industry CXOs, a gap area for many leaders, especially women.
“The percentage of women in the workforce, and especially in leadership roles in India is abysmally low,” points out Ms. Misra, who believes that having a better gender balance at the top, will lead to cultures and organisations becoming more inclusive over a period of time, and create role models for incoming talent. “That could create and help to sustain greater diversity,” she says. “We aim to accelerate the movement towards a gender-balanced and inclusive corporate India, faster than what would incrementally happen without intervention.”
