Honestly, I am always sheepish about not putting women leaders on the cover of Forbes India often enough. I mean, look at the Rich List issue that came out a few days ago. Five covers. All men. Look at the cover of the issue you have in your hands. Three faces on the cover. All men.
This is an extreme irony because some of the finest and hardest working people in the Forbes India team—writers, editors, designers, photographers, researchers—are not men. For evidence, look at the names appearing in our magazine and on the website. There are more who continue with their immense contribution without perhaps getting enough credit.
But in our coverage, we struggle to achieve that kind of gender balance.
Honestly, again, we are painfully conscious of this imbalance and always try to look for highlighting women leaders and achievers. We make the extra effort to make sure we do not miss out on good names across genders in every area we cover.
And you will find some excellent personalities there: In artificial intelligence, longevity, young companies to watch out for, startups, tech, etc. We also bring out a magazine issue every year dedicated to women leaders. But quite often, we find our hands tied.
Despite the best of intentions, the presence of women in leading roles across sectors remains limited. A study by Khaitan & Co, the law firm, says women’s board representation in the Nifty-500 has grown from around 6 percent in 2013 to approximately 21 percent in 2025. The year 2013 was when it became mandatory for all listed companies in the country to have at least one woman on their boards.
In the immediate aftermath of the regulatory action, we were presented with the curious phenomenon of bahu-beti-biwi-bhanji boards. Instead of finding worthy candidates, several companies took the convenient option of appointing a family member to meet the woman quota. Even now, debate continues over the meaningfulness of several appointments—whether they are actually moving the needle when it comes to having more effective female leadership.
Which is why the death of Simone Tata on December 5 hits differently. She came to India on holiday in 1953—all of 23 and still called Simone Dunoyer. She fell in love with Naval Hormusji Tata, 26 years her senior. They married two years later.
Simone was appointed as the managing director of Lakme, the cosmetics company, in 1961. It was a minor play for the Tata Group. But Simone was quick to identify the market potential of the aspiring new Indian woman and her desire to express her personality. Over the next two decades, she made Lakme India’s largest cosmetics brand. But that is not the most striking thing on her resume.
In the 1990s, she spearheaded Tata’s foray into retail as Lakme found its way into the arms of Hindustan Unilever Ltd, which was then called Hindustan Lever Ltd. The Tata Group ploughed the money from that transaction into retail, which is now a shining part of the conglomerate.
Simone was mother to a very well-known corporate figure and stepmother to another one. However, we are not invoking the names of the two gentlemen here to keep the focus solely on the lady.
Simone should be remembered for who she was, not who she was related to. That she was her own person was reinforced when she attended Cyrus Mistry’s funeral—the only member of the Tata family to do so.
In such tributes, it is customary to say she was ahead of her time. Maybe. Or maybe we are behind the times, considering we still struggle to strike gender balance in our coverage.
Suveen SinhaEditor, Forbes IndiaEmail: suveen.sinha@nw18.comX ID: @suveensinha
First Published: Dec 15, 2025, 17:13
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