Aspiration isn't the problem, structural friction is: AnitaB.org India's Shreya Krishnan on the missing women CIOs

Despite years of diversity hiring, women remain significantly underrepresented in technology leadership roles, and the problem is no longer about getting women into STEM - it is about ensuring they stay, grow and lead.

According to Shreya Krishnan, Managing Director, AnitaB.org India, the sharpest drop in women's participation occurs not at the entry level but midway through their careers, when personal responsibilities, workplace structures and leadership perceptions collide.

"The pipeline breaks most severely at mid-career, typically between eight and twelve years of experience," Krishnan told TechCircle. "Women comprise more than 40% of STEM graduates, but by the time professionals reach senior management, participation plummets."

For years, companies have invested in mentoring programmes, confidence-building workshops and networking initiatives. While valuable, Krishnan argues that such interventions often focus on fixing individuals rather than addressing systemic barriers.

"The real break happens when caregiving responsibilities intensify, workplace flexibility vanishes, and promotion criteria reward visibility over results," she said. "Women hit the marriage-and-motherhood wall, where organisations assume, not always consciously, that their commitment has waned."

The leadership challenge, she believes, is also shaped by how women and organisations perceive leadership itself.

"Many women believe being trustworthy and reliable is the path to leadership. We often guide them that this is not what leadership looks like," Krishnan said. "Leadership involves pivoting, changing directions, presence and power. This needs reframing across all parts of business."
That distinction becomes particularly important as women progress through the workforce. While mentorship remains a common intervention,

Krishnan argues that sponsorship—not mentorship—is often the missing link in women's advancement.

"Sponsorship means a senior leader uses their political capital to put a woman forward for stretch assignments, visible roles and succession pipelines," she said. "It's not 'let me give you advice'; it's 'I will make sure your name is in the room when decisions are made.'"

The challenge is particularly relevant for India's technology sector, which produces one of the world's largest pools of women STEM graduates but continues to see relatively few women rise to CIO, CTO and executive leadership positions.

Krishnan believes the issue is rooted in a combination of corporate culture, policy gaps and social expectations.
"The answer is, unfortunately, all of the above," she said. "Women enter STEM with high ambition. Aspiration isn't the problem. Structural and cultural friction is."

She points to what she calls the "ambition penalty" women face as they balance career progression with expectations around caregiving and family responsibilities. At the same time, many organisations continue to reward presenteeism and uninterrupted availability over outcomes and flexibility.

Among the most common reasons women leave technology careers are the lack of flexibility after maternity leave, unequal growth opportunities, unconscious bias in performance reviews and the absence of psychological safety.

"Reporting harassment is often seen as career suicide rather than organisational responsibility," Krishnan noted.

As enterprises increasingly adopt artificial intelligence, AnitaB.org India is also pushing organisations to ensure inclusion is embedded into technology itself.

"Building inclusion from day one means treating diversity as technical debt prevention, not compliance," Krishnan said. "AI can never be ethical or responsible by itself—but people using AI need to be."

She argues that inclusive AI requires more than diverse hiring. Organisations need multidisciplinary product teams, mandatory bias audits and rigorous testing of datasets for embedded gender, caste and social biases.

"Currently, much of the data used to train AI systems lacks diverse voices. We need to build the sensibilities required for AI to function as a neutral system, minus bias," she said.

The conversation around women in technology also extends beyond hiring and leadership into skilling. AnitaB.org India's partnership with the Karnataka government to train 3,000 women STEM graduates is designed to address a common weakness in traditional skilling initiatives: the disconnect between training and employment.

"What differentiates this partnership is job alignment from day one," Krishnan said. "Many skilling programmes focus on certifications and technical hours completed without deep integration with employer demand."

Unlike conventional skilling initiatives, the programme combines industry-aligned curriculum with mentorship, placement support, mental health resources and post-placement tracking. It also incorporates policy support around safe transport, hostels and childcare—factors often overlooked in workforce development discussions.

"When women see a clear path from training to employment, retention becomes a shared responsibility, not an individual burden," she said.

For companies seeking to increase women in leadership, Krishnan says success rarely happens by accident. Organisations that consistently promote women into senior roles typically have women leaders already at the top, transparent promotion processes and accountability mechanisms tied to business outcomes.

"Companies that stagnate at mid-level diversity often have strong entry-level hiring but no structural commitment to progression," she said. "The difference is intentional, resourced, measurable action—not good intentions."

She also believes organisations need to rethink how they invest in leadership development.

“Mentorship nurtures. Sponsorship launches,” Krishnan said. “Organisations need both, but only one currently gets resourced adequately.”

Looking ahead, Krishnan argues that increasing the number of women CIOs and technology leaders will require a combination of job-linked skilling, stronger sponsorship models, corporate accountability and investments in care infrastructure. Measures such as audited pay-gap reporting, scalable return-to-work programmes and childcare support must become part of mainstream workforce strategy rather than diversity initiatives.

But ultimately, she says, the biggest shift required is cultural.

"When every boardroom defaults to suit-clad men, we lose the brilliance of saree-clad, bindi-wearing women. Representation isn't symbolic, it signals possibility," Krishnan said. "The talent is ready. The systems need to catch up."

For a country that produces one of the world's largest pools of women STEM graduates, the challenge is no longer creating ambition. It is ensuring that ambition is not lost somewhere between the first job and the corner office.