EquiLead Helps Women Reach Leadership in India's Social Sector

Sheethal TS was leading her team, but her male colleagues were still being asked to verify her decisions. Across India's social impact sector, talented women like her start strong but quietly disappear from leadership pipelines.

Anchal Kakkar noticed this pattern while working in talent development. Women filled entry-level roles, but as she looked higher up the ladder, their numbers thinned dramatically.

She wanted to understand why. So in 2020, during the pandemic slowdown, she launched EquiLead with support from the Rockefeller Foundation and Climate Asia.

Her team interviewed women leaders across the sector and documented their journeys from education to the corner office. They studied 128 organizations between 2020 and 2024, examining policies, culture, and how women experienced belonging at work.

The findings told a clear story. While most organizations said they valued women's leadership, only 31 percent actually had women in senior roles. The intention was there, but the support systems often weren't.

Anchal didn't start in social impact work. After beginning her career in corporate audit at PwC in 2007, she earned her MBA at Oxford's Saïd Business School specifically to move closer to meaningful work. Her time at Dasra and Boston Consulting Group showed her how organizations functioned and where they struggled with talent.

In 2016, she co-founded Arthan to focus on leadership development in the social sector. That's when she started seeing the patterns that would become EquiLead's focus.

The Ripple Effect

EquiLead works as a collaborative platform, partnering with organizations to redesign how they support women professionals. The program starts with a three-day residential workshop where women can share experiences and build networks.

But the real work happens in the organizations themselves. EquiLead helps companies examine their policies, culture, and day-to-day practices that might inadvertently hold women back.

For women like Jagrity Sharan, who struggled to get the right opportunities at the right time, this kind of systemic change matters. It's not about dramatic moments but the everyday realities that shape whether women can move forward.

The challenges aren't always obvious. Sometimes it's caregiving responsibilities with no flexibility to manage them. Sometimes it's subtle signals that women's voices matter less. Sometimes it's just that systems were built without considering different paths to leadership.

EquiLead is helping organizations see these invisible barriers and build better ones. One workplace at a time, they're making leadership accessible to the women who've earned it.