Shabana Azmi

Shabana Azmi

Gender

Shabana Azmi, the prominent Indian actress, describes how actors in parallel cinema (as opposed to mainstream cinema) in India have challenged the prevailing gender norms, and relates the risks associated with their doing so.

Susana Balbo

Susana Balbo

Gender

Susana Balbo, owner of Susana Balbo Wines, based in Argentina, describes the qualities she feels women bring to business leadership, including creativity and innovation, and the challenges they face, including a lack of respect. She also describes how technology might help lower barriers for women wanting to enter business.

Shyam Benegal

Shyam Benegal

Gender

Shyam Benegal, the legendary Indian film maker and pioneer of parallel cinema in the country, discusses the need to contest conventional patriarchal representations of women in movies, as an essential step to achieving greater equality and democracy in India.

Patrick Chalhoub

Patrick Chalhoub

Gender

Patrick Chalhoub, co-CEO of Dubai-based luxury retailer Chalhoub, discusses the changing gender balance of customers from the male, head-of-household, dominated 1960s, to the 2010s when women are more likely the decision-makers around purchasing luxury goods.

Cas Coovadia

Cas Coovadia

Gender

Cas Coovadia, the long-running Managing Director of the Banking Association South Africa, discusses the reasons for the lack of gender diversity in South African financial services, and calls for deliberate action to overcome this.

María Emilia Correa

María Emilia Correa

Gender

María Emilia Correa, co-founder of Sistema B, a Latin American organization promoting B Corporations and sustainability, discusses the importance of gender diversity on corporate boards and managements in Latin America.

Sylvia Escovar

Sylvia Escovar

Gender

Sylvia Escovar, the President of the Colombia-based oil and gas distribution company Terpel, discusses the challenges she faced as a female executive, and how gender diversity is a huge asset for companies.

Shinta Widjaja Kamdani

Shinta Widjaja Kamdani

Gender

Shinta Widjaja Kamdani, owner of Indonesian-based consumer products and energy company Sintesa Group, discusses her challenges after inheriting leadership of her father's business. She describes herself as a "triple minority" because of her gender, ethnicity, and religion.

Shinta Widjaja Kamdani

Shinta Widjaja Kamdani

Gender

Shinta Widjaja Kamdani, owner of Indonesian-based consumer products and energy company Sintesa Group, discusses facing the perception by male employees of her as a “spoiled kid” who succeeded because she was the owner’s daughter and her “double effort” (as a woman and as an owner) to prove herself by working from the bottom up.

Naina Lal Kidwai

Naina Lal Kidwai

Gender

Naina Lal Kidwai, former head of HSBC India and founder of the India Sanitation Coalition, reflects on her experience as a woman trying to start a career in chartered accountancy in India in the 1970s, and her experience as the first Indian woman to go to Harvard Business School.

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

Gender

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairperson and Managing Director of Biocon, India’s largest biopharmaceutical company, discusses her ambition to promote women’s careers, noting that although 30 per cent of company researchers are now female, she has experienced continuing challenges in opening other leadership positions to women.

Zia Mody

Zia Mody

Gender

Zia Mody, founder of AZB & Partners, a leading corporate law firm in India, describes her policy of providing mentorship and advice to women through marriage and motherhood in order to retain them as employees.