Women directors in India’s 116 Indian unicorn startups hold only 5.8 percent of the 1,314 board seats as of March 2025.
In contrast, women held 18.3 percent of board seats across India Inc in 2023, whereas the global average was 23.3 percent.
PrivateCircle Research found that only 56 unicorns have a total of 76 women directors. While 13 unicorns have more than 1 women director.
Murali Loganathan, Director of Research at PrivateCircle Research, noted that companies with more diverse boards tend to achieve better financial performance.
According to a 2023 report by McKinsey, companies with more diverse boards are likely to achieve stronger financial performance. Notably, companies in the top quartile for board gender diversity are 27 percent are more likely to outperform financially than those in the bottom quartile.
PrivateCircle’s analysis revealed that finance sector unicorns have the highest number of women directors (16), followed by software (8), retail (7), insurance (5), travel & hospitality (5), and emerging technology (4) unicorns.
Several companies, such as C.E. Info Systems Limited (MapmyIndia), Incred Financial Services Limited (Incred), One Mobikwik Systems Limited (MobiKwik), Pb Fintech Limited (PolicyBazaar), Fsn E-Commerce Ventures Limited (Nykaa), Zomato Limited (Zomato), and Fractal Analytics Limited (Fractal Analytics) have the highest number of active women directors, with three each.
Deloitte’s insights reveal that female representation in boardrooms has risen by 3.6 percent since 2022, and the projected timeline for achieving gender parity has also shortened by seven years.
Worldwide, the percentage of women chairing boards is significantly lower than the percentage of women serving on boards, with only 8.4 percent of global boards being chaired by women. The numbers are low even in countries with gender quotas, that as Norway and France– fewer than 13% of these women directors have ascended to the chair role.
When it comes to the highest executive roles, women’s representation dropped even further, with only 6 percent of CEOs in the world being women.