Diversified miner Vedanta Ltd is working on an initiative to develop a pipeline of women CXOs across its various businesses of zinc-silver-lead, oil and gas, aluminium, copper, iron ore and steel, a top official has said.

Vedanta has linked gender diversity goals to the top management’s KPI (key performance indicator) with an aim to catapult women to the group’s top 200 leaders within a fixed time frame of six to 18 months, said Madhu Srivastava, group chief HR officer of Vedanta Ltd.
“We are in the process of identifying a clutch of high potential young women from the middle and senior management levels who will be mentored and promoted to take on greater responsibilities as a part of key decision making bodies such as managing committee and executive committee,” Srivastava told ET in an exclusive interaction.
Vedanta has identified 100 women leaders, out of nearly 1,200 women employees, to give them higher visibility and exposure, and fast-track their career progression through elevated roles.

“The disruption due to the pandemic has reinforced the need to include more women in the decision-making level and our army of 100 women leaders is a step in that direction,” Srivastava said. “We have made gender diversity goals a part of CEOs and CXO’s KPI.”
THE PLAN

• Vedanta building pipeline of women CXOs across group
• Aim is to elevate women to CXO roles as part of the top 200 leaders in the group within a fixed time frame of six to 18 months.
• Identified 100 women leaders, out of nearly 1200 female employees
• Linked gender diversity goal to top management KPI/KRA
• These women will be handling high-impact  projects and a minimum of five women will be given higher roles and responsibilities on a quarterly basis
  Anchoring the programme are senior leaders of the group and each anchor has been assigned five to six women leaders as mentees. The company has identified 70 senior leaders as mentors. The programme spans across business units within the country and abroad.
  
  “This is related to our larger objective of ESG (environment, social and governance) goal and we are looking at gender parity in CXO positions,” Srivastava said. The company is aiming at 30% representation of women in its executive and managing committees and 40% diversity in leadership roles in the immediate future, she said.
  
  Companies across sectors are increasingly building a cascade effect of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) accountability. According to the 2021 Working Mother & Avtar Most Inclusive Companies Index (MICI), 95% organisations out of 340 have built their KPIs/KRAs on DEI for their people managers across levels.
• “It is a proven fact that diversity aids problem-solving,” said Saundarya Rajesh, founder president of Avtar Group, a diversity and inclusion consulting firm. “Avtar’s best companies research has shown that organisations which seek sustainability and contemporary insights, always invest in DEI. The Covid years are an even more emphatic eye-opener in this regard,” she said.
  Vedanta is also looking at hiring more women especially at the entry level and has set a 50% gender diversity hiring target for business management and other post graduate campuses and 30% for engineering campuses.