Two replies tabled in Parliament this month measure the same thing from opposite ends. The first, from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation on August 5, showed women in senior management rising from 34,879 in FY2022-23 to 43,331 in FY2025-26. This was a 24.2% increase, more than double the 11.7% growth recorded for men.
The second, from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs on August 10, showed that among India’s top 500 listed companies by turnover, there are nine women CEOs.
How many women in India have executive powers in top-500 listed companies?
Government data placed before Parliament shows 638 women Independent Directors and 860 women in the Directors/Board Members category among the top 500 listed companies.
Taken together, these categories amount to 1,498 reported women positions across the board-level categories.
But when the lens shifts from board representation to executive management, the number falls sharply.
The MCA reported
| Position | Women |
| CEOs | 9 |
| Managing Directors | 25 |
| Executive/Whole-time Directors | 67 |
| CFOs | 22 |
| Independent Directors | 638 |
| Directors/Board Members* | 860 |
*The Directors/Board Members category includes Additional Directors, Directors, Managing Directors, Nominee Directors and Whole-time Directors.
The four executive categories — CEOs, Managing Directors, Executive/Whole-time Directors and CFOs — account for 123 reported women positions.
Boardroom seat does not mean executive control
An Independent Director is not a day-to-day executive. The role is designed around independent oversight of management, governance, scrutiny of corporate decisions and protection of shareholder interests.
A Managing Director, Whole-time Director or CEO, on the other hand, is part of executive management and has direct responsibility for running the company.
That means the presence of 638 women Independent Directors cannot be treated as equivalent to having 638 women running companies.
Nor does being a Director automatically mean controlling operations, capital allocation or the company’s executive strategy.
This is the distinction that gets lost when corporate diversity is measured simply by counting women on boards.
India Inc has brought more women into the boardroom. But the number of women occupying positions with direct operational authority remains far smaller.
The question, therefore, is no longer simply how many women have entered the boardroom? It is: how many have made the journey from the boardroom to the executive suite? The answer remains strikingly small.
Nine women CEOs, 25 MDs
Among the top 500 listed companies, the MCA data records only nine women CEOs.
There are 25 women Managing Directors, 67 Executive/Whole-time Directors and 22 women CFOs. So, out of 1498, only 123 hold positions of real power in India’s top-500 listed companies. It demonstrates that representation in corporate governance and representation in executive management are two different measurements of gender diversity.
An analysis published by the Independent Directors Databank last year found a similar pattern in the BSE 200: only 11% of women directors held executive positions, compared with 65% of men.
The government data for the top 500 companies therefore fits into a broader pattern: women have entered corporate boards in substantially larger numbers than they have entered the most powerful operational positions.
The money trail: ₹71 lakh in penalties
There is also a financial side to India’s board-level gender-diversity framework.
Under the Companies Act, every listed company, as well as certain large unlisted public companies, is required to have at least one woman director on its board. The requirement has an enforcement mechanism. If not complied, the companies pay a fine as part of adjudication.
Between FY2021-22 and FY2025-26, Registrars of Companies passed 50 adjudication orders in cases involving non-compliance with statutory requirements relating to women directors.
The penalties received totalled ₹71.01 lakh.
| Financial Year | Adjudication orders | Penalty received |
| FY2021-22 | 2 | ₹12.44 lakh |
| FY2022-23 | 10 | ₹6.11 lakh |
| FY2023-24 | 19 | ₹14.59 lakh |
| FY2024-25 | 11 | ₹22.61 lakh |
| FY2025-26 | 8 | ₹15.28 lakh |
| Total | 50 | ₹71.01 lakh |
The highest penalty collection during the period came in FY2024-25, at ₹22.61 lakh.
In other words, the requirement to have women on corporate boards is not merely a voluntary diversity exercise. Companies have faced financial consequences for non-compliance. And if not for that fine or law, one can only imagine what the number of women representation on the board would have been, instead of 1498.
It is also important to note that in its response to Parliament, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs said no specific target, incentive or policy intervention was under consideration to improve gender diversity in corporate governance.
Growth of women at managerial level in India compared to men
The broader senior-management data makes the story more complicated.
The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, using MCA data, in response to VCK MP’s question, said the number of women in senior management positions increased from 34,879 in FY2022-23 to 43,331 in FY2025-26.
That is an increase of 8,452 women, or about 24.2%.
Over the same period, the number of men in senior management increased from 1,86,946 to 2,08,772 — an increase of 21,826, or about 11.7%.
So the data does not show that women’s growth was slower than men’s in percentage terms. Quite the opposite.
Women’s senior-management headcount grew at more than twice the percentage rate of men’s over the period. But this is where the base effect becomes important.
Men added 21,826 senior-management positions between FY2022-23 and FY2025-26, compared with 8,452 for women.
In absolute terms, therefore, the increase among men was about 2.6 times the increase among women.
| Financial Year | Men | Women | Women’s share |
| FY2022-23 | 1,86,946 | 34,879 | ~15.7% |
| FY2023-24 | 1,92,205 | 38,273 | ~16.6% |
| FY2024-25 | 1,94,729 | 39,071 | ~16.7% |
| FY2025-26 | 2,08,772 | 43,331 | ~17.2% |
Women increased their share of senior management from roughly 15.7% to 17.2% over these four years.
However, the underlying gender gap remains enormous: in FY2025-26, there were nearly 4.8 men for every woman in the senior-management positions covered by the data.
The real gap is not entry. It is ascent. The two parliamentary replies ultimately point towards the same problem from different directions.
The first shows that India has created a measurable pathway for women into corporate boardrooms. The second shows that the number of women in senior management is rising.
But the CEO numbers reveal how narrow the path becomes at the top. Nine women CEOs among the top 500 listed companies. That number is perhaps the clearest expression of the gap between representation and power. Even if you compare it with Fortune 500 USA and Fortune 500 European Union (consortium of 24 EU countries), then India is far behind as they have 55 and 39 female CEOs respectively.
The government data does not establish why that gap exists. In fact, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs explicitly said that it has not conducted an assessment of the barriers affecting the progression of women directors.
So the numbers cannot, by themselves, establish that women directors are being prevented from reaching executive positions. They can, however, establish the scale of the disparity. Women are increasingly visible on corporate boards. Women are increasing their share of senior management. But the executive suite remains overwhelmingly male.