Author: Shreya Biswas, ET Bureau
Publication: The Economic Times
Date: March 8, 2014
URL: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-company/corporate-trends/women-are-shedding-their-traditional-image-and-getting-out-to-grab-opportunities/articleshow/31626221.cms

If you think daring and enterprise are manly attributes, then you are wrong. Women achievers are entering that exclusive domain of men as they indulge in adventure sports and set up companies.

 At India's largest motor driving school chain, MarutiBSE 5.21 % Driving School, based in
Delhi, Hena Kausar, its head, designs the curriculum and the hours of training. The school has 312 training centres spread across 165 cities and the 40-year-old Kausar has been trying to encourage more women to take up driving by offering discounts on training programmes.

 She also runs a training programme for minorities and has set up training schools in places such as Imphal and Shillong, which did not have formal driving schools.

 Kausar, who took over the division in 2012, plans to take the number of schools to 500 in the next financial year. "It is challenging to work in an environment dominated by men, but is equally exciting," Kausar, deputy general manager at Maruti SuzukiBSE 5.21 %,
said. "I was lucky to get support from my seniors though there was a lot of external scepticism from transporters who doubted what a woman could do. But if you are passionate, you can overcome this," she said in a phone interview.

 As the economy grows and new possibilities crop up, women are shedding their traditional image and getting out of their safe homes to grab those opportunities.

Breaking Glass Ceiling

 Sunila Dhar, a motorsport enthusiast, organises events like Raidde-Himalaya, Desert Storm, Dakshin Dare for Maruti Suzuki. Dhar has been associated with rallies for the last two decades as she is the deputy general manager, marketing at Maruti Suzuki.

 "As a woman it is very interesting to be a part of this, you have to be in love with the machines. But I have been fortunate enough to always get the encouragement I needed, else it would not have been possible to reach where I have," Dhar said. Some other achievers such as Sminu Jindal runs Jindal SawBSE 1.29 % from a wheelchair.

 She was the first woman in the country to break the glass ceiling in the steel and oil & gas sectors in India when she was appointed the managing director of the company in 1999 at the age of 24.

 Since then, she has expanded it from a Rs 300-crore company to a Rs 5,000-crore entity, despite her disability. Shilpi Kapoor, a Shell Helen Keller award winner and an Ashoka Fellow, develops technologies and products through BarrierBreak Technologies that provide accessibility and knowledge management for people with disabilities. Kapoor, however, had to fight biases for the people she wanted to help.

 Kapoor, who founded BarrierBreak Technologies as a subsidiary of Net Systems Informatics in 2007, also set up the first computer training centre for the visually challenged along with the Bill Gates Foundation and Indian Association for the Visually Handicapped. In the case of Sarika Bhattacharya, 37, she set up a national network of professional women called Biz Divas, an arm of Altavis, a hiring and consulting firm.

 The organisation mentors aspiring women leaders. "While trying to hire women leaders, we saw a huge gap in every sphere of life -- corporate, entrepreneurship and civil society. We realised there are not enough relevant high-potential networks that women have access to. So we launched Biz Divas," Bhattacharya said.