Virginia Galarón, Customer Advocate Director at New Relic, has a piece of advice for women working in technology: prepare for the moments when you are the only woman in the room. “That can feel daunting, but it is also powerful,” she said. In her day-to-day work with global clients, Galarón has watched careers flourish when professionals shift from completing tasks to creating sustained value and started asking why the work mattered. She has also watched what happens when the only woman in the room stays silent.
“Being the only one means you bring a perspective that is not yet represented,” Galarón said. That framing — not as isolation but as an unrealised asset — captures the central tension facing women in tech across India today. The talent exists. The systems to support it do not.
Galarón’s observation is not an isolated one. India produces one of the world’s highest shares of women STEM graduates at 43 per cent. That figure places the country ahead of the United States and most of Europe in terms of sheer pipeline strength. Yet somewhere between the campus and the corner office, the numbers collapse. Women hold just 4 to 8 per cent of executive positions in India’s technology sector and only 14 per cent of C-suite roles.
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The gap between those two figures is not a pipeline problem. It is a retention and progression problem, one that companies are only now beginning to confront with anything resembling structural intent. As we celebrate International Women’s Day 2026, the question for India’s technology industry is no longer whether women belong. It is whether the industry can build the systems that keep them.
The pipeline that leaks before the leadership table
Ridhima Sawant, Chief Transformation Officer at Orient Technologies, put the diagnosis bluntly. “Talent is not scarce; retention and progression systems are,” she said. That single sentence reframes a conversation that has, for years, focused on the wrong end of the problem. Companies have invested heavily in hiring women into entry-level engineering and product roles. What they have not done, in most cases, is build the infrastructure that prevents attrition at the mid-career stage.
The mid-career drop-off is where the damage is most severe. Women leave the technology workforce disproportionately between the five-year and ten-year marks, often because of caregiving responsibilities, a lack of visible career pathways or workplaces that treat flexibility as an exception rather than a design principle. Sawant pointed to structured mentorship as especially critical for women returning to work after career breaks. Without deliberate re-onboarding systems, she argued, returning professionals lose confidence and momentum regardless of their technical capability.
Orient Technologies has responded with its 2nd Inning programme, designed specifically to create re-entry pathways. The programme pairs returning professionals with mentors, provides reskilling in high-growth areas such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing and cybersecurity, and establishes clear milestones for career progression. Sawant emphasised that the focus is on capability building rather than symbolic campaigns. The distinction matters. Programmes that end at awareness rarely produce measurable change in representation numbers.
Why women in tech need systems, not just slogans
The pattern Orient Technologies has identified is not unique. Across India’s technology sector, a handful of companies have begun to treat women’s advancement as an operational priority with dedicated budgets, measurable outcomes and executive accountability.
At Creative Synergies Group, the approach has been built around quarterly learning interventions. Sujendra GS, the company’s Vice President of Human Resources, described a layered programme that includes leadership development sessions branded as LeadHERship, personal branding workshops and financial literacy initiatives designed to strengthen both professional capability and self-advocacy. The company also runs dedicated health initiatives for women employees, including breast cancer screening programmes.
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What sets the Creative Synergies model apart is its governance structure. A dedicated Women’s Committee meets quarterly to review progress, identify gaps and design customised interventions. Sujendra argued that sustained institutional support, not one-off events, is what builds leadership confidence over time. The committee model ensures that women’s advancement remains a standing agenda item rather than an annual observance.
Moving from representation to strategic influence
Hiring more women is a necessary first step. But several leaders argued that it is no longer sufficient. Janaki Yarlagadda, Chairman of Blue Cloud Softech Solutions, framed the shift directly: the focus, she said, must move beyond representation to women shaping strategy, governance and enterprise-wide decisions.
That distinction matters because representation without authority changes demographics but not outcomes. When women hold seats at the table but lack decision-making power over budgets, product direction or organisational strategy, the structural dynamics of the technology industry remain essentially unchanged. Yarlagadda argued that when women build and lead companies, they create ecosystems that embed accountability and expand opportunity more broadly.
Rahul Sahay, Senior Vice President of HR at Virtusa Corporation, echoed the point from a talent-systems perspective. He noted that expanding access to high-impact engineering and strategic roles for women strengthens talent pipelines and drives more sustainable organisational performance. At Virtusa, this has translated into targeted investment in capability building and leadership progression across global teams.
Preeti Menon, Chief Operating Officer for Product and Digital Engineering Services at Happiest Minds Technologies, connected the argument to the current technology moment. As the industry enters an era defined by AI and emerging technologies, she argued, inclusive innovation is essential to building responsible and future-ready digital solutions. Diverse leadership teams produce better products because they are less likely to embed the blind spots that homogeneous teams carry.
Purpose as a career strategy for women in tech
Structural change requires institutional action. But Galarón also made the case for something more personal. She said she sees firsthand how careers flourish when professionals shift from completing tasks to creating sustained value. The difference, in her view, lies in understanding the purpose behind the work.
“Every project has an intended outcome,” she said. “Understanding that outcome early allows you to prioritise effectively, influence decisions and deliver results that truly matter.” Galarón argued that when professionals anchor their work in purpose, they build confidence and credibility that compound over time. The advice is practical rather than aspirational: know the business reason behind your assignment, and use that knowledge to position yourself as someone who drives results, not just someone who executes instructions.
That mindset, Galarón suggested, is what ultimately builds the route from entry-level positions to the C-suite. It is also a form of giving. When women who have navigated the system share what they have learned — through mentorship, advocacy or simply by being visible in senior roles — they create pathways for others to follow.
Galarón’s advice to women who find themselves alone in a room full of decision-makers is to speak. “Diverse thinking is essential to solving complex challenges, and your insight may be the catalyst that changes the direction of a conversation or a strategy,” she said.
Whether India’s technology industry can build enough of those rooms and then keep the women who fill them will determine whether that 43 per cent figure ever translates into leadership that reflects it.
