Automotive Industry Leaders and Women Shopfloor Workers Convene as India’s Auto Industry Maps Its Next Move on Gender Inclusion at Good Business Lab Event
New Delhi : Good Business Lab (GBL), a non-profit labour innovation and research organisation, today brought together senior business leaders, ecosystem actors, and workers for a leadership convening at Le Méridien, New Delhi. The event brought together voices of OEMs and component manufacturers who have taken sizable steps to increase women’s participation in the workforce and unravel the business case for doing so.
The dialogue followed GBL’s September report launch at the 66th ACMA Annual Session,” Powering India’s Automotive Sector: Unlocking Women’s Talent for Industry Growth,” which reported that women account for just 8.7% of the combined OEM and component manufacturing workforce, despite the sector’s growing need for more diverse and skilled talent to meet the Viksit Bharat ambition. The three-year study, which involved 55+ automotive firms, 400+ stakeholders and 1,900+ individuals, identified and tested practical shopfloor solutions that can help firms attract and retain more women, advancing the sector’s growth and global competitiveness.
The convening discussed immediate actions for participating firms and focused on translating the evidence and experiences shared during the day into changes on their respective workforces. Key points discussed included:
● Reduce the barriers to entry through building capacity within firms by adapting and piloting solutions that overcome practical barriers. Additionally, continued study of how to tackle more stubborn problems like improving supply of skilled labor, night shift participation, last-mile transport, and childcare.
● Retention, not just hiring, is the real test, as panelists reiterated the point that bringing women onto the shop floor matters less than what happens after. Career pathways, performance metrics that reward managers for retention, and workplace conditions that make staying worthwhile must be addressed. Sharing lessons learnt from firms and pilots to de-risk experimentation and feed into policy discussions.
● Progress requires sustained collaboration, not a single intervention. Speakers agreed that it will take continued research, shared learning across firms, and capacity-building support to move the needle on increasing women’s participation in the workforce. This needs to be a collective pathway between firms, philanthropy and the government
These conclusions were arrived at over the course of a day that began with opening remarks from GBL co-founder, Achyuta Adhvaryu, and Krishna Thacker, Senior Programme Officer, Gates Foundation, followed by a keynote address by Shradha Suri Marwah – Past President, ACMA and CMD, Subros Ltd.
The three panels explored different dimensions of the challenge:
● The first, “The Business of Inclusion”, brought together senior business leaders already investing in advancing women in their workforce, leading the way for the industry. They included Suman Mishra, CEO & MD, Mahindra Last Mile Mobility Ltd.; Viveka Bhandari, COO, Padmini VNA Mechatronics Limited; Sunil Arora, MD, Abilities India Pistons & Rings (AIP); Satyaprakash Patil, CHRO, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI); and Vinkesh Gulati, Chairperson, Automotive Skills Development Council. The panel was moderated by Anant Ahuja, Co-Founder of GBL.
● The second panel, “Building Skills, Careers and Futures on the Shopfloor”, turned the floor over to the workers themselves. Women shopfloor associates from Abilities India Pistons & Rings, Asahi India Glass, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India and Sansera Engineering elaborated on their careers, moderated by Palash Shanker, Design Manager, GBL.
● The day’s final panel, “Making Inclusion the Norm”, widened the lens to explore what it would take to achieve sector-wide adoption. Leaders from the industry and broader ecosystem discussed this topic at length. The panel included Milind Shah, Head – MG Select, JSW MG Motor India; Madhukar Bhat, CHRO, Sansera Engineering; Vinod Razdan, CHRO, Gabriel India; Sunil Gadh, Plant Head – Bawal, Asahi India Glass; Megha Jain, formerly Private Sector Lead, Gates Foundation; Sneha Sood, AVP – Private Sector, Udaiti Foundation; and Vikram Jain, MD, FSG Advisory Services Private Limited. The conversation was moderated by Eshika Gombar, Head of Growth, GBL.
Mr. Nirmal Deshpande, Managing Director, Good Business Lab, concluded the event by calling for deeper collaboration between philanthropy and large firms to share what has worked, continued investment in the safety and transport infrastructure that enables more women to be on the shop floor, and a shift from research alone to co-designing solutions directly with firms.
He said, “The evidence increasingly mirrors what we are hearing from industry: women’s participation is no longer just an inclusion imperative, but a business necessity. Several leading firms are already showing what is possible; the challenge now is scale. We brought business leaders, women workers and the wider ecosystem together to chart the path ahead. The opportunity is clear: now we need to turn what works into action across the sector.”
The dialogue marks the next phase of GBL’s work with the automotive industry, taking the evidence from its research and working with businesses to put practical solutions into place. The focus now is on what firms can do to bring more women into automotive manufacturing and create conditions that enable them to build lasting careers in the sector.
****
