Women's share of corporate executive roles fell to 16.7 percent
The share of women in corporate executive roles among companies benchmarked by Avtar and Seramount fell to 16.7 percent from 20 percent, the first reversal in the study's eleven years.
At India's benchmarked employers
Women held 16.7 percent of corporate executive roles among the companies recognised in the 2026 Best Companies for Women in India study, down from 20 percent in 2025, according to the eleventh edition of the study by Avtar Career Creators with the US-based firm Seramount. Overall women's representation among the same cohort fell to 34.6 percent from 35.7 percent, while the top ten companies held steadier at 42.8 percent.
The study drew 387 participating companies, of which 125 were placed on the Best Companies list. Of those, 37 percent are Indian companies and 63 percent multinationals. Avtar frames the reversal as a global retreat on diversity reaching Indian employers, after eleven years of gains.
Two limits on how far the numbers can be read. The sample is self-selecting: these are organisations that volunteer for an inclusion benchmarking exercise, so they sit well above any national average rather than describing India Inc. And the cohort is not fixed year to year, so a share that falls between editions may reflect a change in which companies participated as much as a change inside them. The study does not state whether the comparison is like for like.
Avtar also published a separate Workplace Wellness list, and reports that companies appearing on both show stronger representation, retention and second-career hiring. It describes that as correlational, and the copy should keep it that way.
Avtar sells workplace culture consulting and inclusion services, so the study is research published by an interested party. That does not disqualify the data, which is attributed and dated, but it belongs in the piece.
