Zomato Diversifies Its Board; Appoints Four Women Directors
In a significant move to create a more inclusive and diverse workplace, online foodtech giant Zomato has announced the appointment of four women directors.
The board will now have the services of badminton player and ex-Olympian Aparna Popat; former Zalora Group chief executive officer Gunjan Tilak Raj Soni; Airveda founder Namita Gupta; and former head of private wealth business at ABN Amro Bank NV (India) Sutapa Banerjee.
“A number of companies start with a diverse employee base at the entry-level, but it reduces significantly over time, and at senior levels. We decided to turn the paradigm on its head by introducing diversity with our Board of Directors. We’re hoping this is another small step towards building a truly lasting organisational culture where everybody belongs. And everybody thrives,” Zomato co-founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal said in a blog post.
In 2019, Zomato offered a 26-week paid parental leave to all its employees, which include new fathers, surrogate or adoptive parents, as well as same-sex parents.
"At Zomato we’ve been working on multiple fronts to strengthen our own long-standing commitment to making our company more inclusive and diverse for years. Be it through initiatives such as an equal parental leave policy for – men, women, same-sex, surrogate or adoptive parents; or period/menstruation leaves.”
Goyal added that more than gender diversity, the company wanted to achieve “cognitive diversity" on its board; and was able to achieve that.
"And up until now, we had a largely investor-run board. But today, I’m elated to share that we have five independent members on our board of eight people, four of whom are women", Goyal said.
Apart from Goyal, the other members on Zomato’s board include Info Edge founder Sanjeev Bikhchandani; senior vice-president at Ant Group Douglas Feagin and independent director Kaushik Dutta.
The foodtech company is currently in preparation of its much-awaited public listing and had amended its memorandum of association earlier this month to become a public limited company, renaming itself Zomato Ltd.
(Edited by Amrita Ghosh)