Mid-career Women Leaders Are India's Missed Opportunity

Experienced, capable, and driven by a sense of purpose, women belong at the centre of our governance discussions

- Aarti Madhusudan & Kakul Misra

risk. Boards tend to replicate what they know, because it's predictable. Women in the mid-career phase consistently report being overqualified for mentorship programmes yet excluded from decision-making spaces. They're expected to be grateful for flexibility, though influence remains out of reach. This often means being assigned caretaker roles that don't lead to strategic oversight, or being passed over for high-stakes assignments on the assumption that personal priorities will conflict.

And while corporate India continues to grapple with this mid-career drain, a deeper crisis persists: entire forms of leadership, rooted in contextual understanding, systems thinking and the ability to navigate high-stakes decisions, are devalued because they don't conform to traditional authority codes. These are actionable skills essential to navigating challenges that organisations face today. What looks like a gender imbalance masks a deep governance failure. In the social sector, where board-level decisions can determine access to healthcare, education, livelihoods and dignity, the stakes are immediate and tangible.