“Women naturally possess qualities required to be successful insolvency professionals”

As head of the Centre for Insolvency and Bankruptcy, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs, Dr Neeti Shikha is in charge of training the future insolvency professionals. Apart from mentoring insolvency graduates, Dr Shikha dons many other roles – executive director, centre for corporate and commercial law, National Law University, Jodhpur; advisor, public policy, Alexis Foundation; leader and expert, Goeman Bind HTO, etc. On the eve of the International Women’s Day, Insolvencytracker.in caught up with her to talk about challenges women in different professions face, and how she has been able to fit into comfortably in different roles throughout her career. Here’s an excerpt:  

You head the Centre for Insolvency and Bankruptcy, which runs the Graduate Insolvency programme. Do you think the insolvency and bankruptcy space provides ‘suitable’ career opportunities for women?

Certainly, today woman have proven their merit in almost every field. Despite the glass ceiling, they have emerged as leaders in various fields.

Insolvency profession is a suitable option for women who are motivated, ethical and command knowledge and respect. Insolvency professionals need to exhibit empathic leadership quality, have good negotiation skills and possess highest sense of ethics. Some of these qualities come naturally to a woman. We have so many women IPs in India doing incredible work.  It’s inspirational.

You have been a legal professional with a good part of your career in academics – as faculty in management and law schools. What is the easier option for a woman – being a lawyer or a teacher?

No career option is easy for women. They need to prove their merit in whatever chair they sit in or whatever shoes they wear.  Not to forget that every working woman is playing multiple roles — she is a mother, a daughter, a wife, a sister and has to manage multiple chores in her personal life, along with her career. This is not easy.

As a teacher, I found immense encouragement from my peers and my students who constantly motivated me to learn and grow.

Teaching is a career which needs complete dedication and requires highest level of commitment.  Not only one needs to be good at her subject but also be one that students look up to and get inspired. A teacher shapes how a young mind thinks. A teacher ignites the passion in students to learn. Whatever I have achieved today has come with lot of personal sacrifices, but I feel very satisfied.

Since you are part of the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA), what is your view on mandatory representation of woman in company boards?

Mandatory representation of woman on board is a welcome step in India. Even before joining IICA, I had done an empirical research on women on boards.

Mandatory representation has certainly increased their presence on boards. However, many questions remain unanswered. Does having just one woman director bring enough diversity? Does a non-executive woman director have enough voice on the board? So, whether the mandatory representation has led to improvement of quality of board diversity is still an open question.

Woman directorship may be a good proxy variable for measuring the board’s independence.   It may, thus, be worthwhile to examine how this percentage varies over time, and these numbers may be re-examined at fixed intervals.

There is a growing acceptance that independent women directors contribute to diversity and better governance. This understanding also resonates in the Kotak Mahindra Committee report.

Has this changed the quality of board meetings?

(It) depends on how you asssess the quality of a board meeting. My research had found that attendance of woman director on an average was 90% which is very encouraging. So, if we were to assess the quality by their attendance, my answer would be in affirmative. But there are several other indicators for assessing quality of a board meeting. It depends on questions raised by them, their involvement and quality participation. How one gets to learn about that, we still do not have a mechanism to trace all this.

Like gender diversity on boards or in corporate offices, do you think there is a need to look beyond gender when it comes to the question of diversity?

You have raised a very important question. What is diversity? Gender is just one form of diversity; we need to look at diversity in the form of culture, sexual orientation, language, social background, educational background, etc. Going forward India will require the law to address the issue of women director having more say and go beyond the tick box approach.

A couple of women from your field who have inspired you the most, professionally.

I have gathered inspiration from each and every woman I have met in my life. Each of them has been fighting her own battle. Each of them has her own stories. One has to be open to see it and learn from it.

I have to name one person, though — my mother. Despite her ill-health, she performed her task with utmost dedication, commitment and excellence. She is my biggest inspiration.

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