'Many women in the corporate India have been found to have an aspirational-deficit’. This was stated by Ms Poonam Barua, Founder-Convener, Women in Leadership (WILL) Forum at its round table session hosted by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in Lucknow on the theme "Women in Leadership: Challenging and Changing Mind sets". Ms Barua also highlighted the need for women to package and project their capabilities adequately well to be considered for senior leadership roles.

Dr Ritu Anand, Vice President and Deputy Global HR Head, TCS explained how her company has initiated a gender diversity management initiative that has gone a long way in ensuring that there is a better level-playing field for senior level women managers.

Ms Adele Khudr, Chief, UP Office, UNICEF Lucknow; Ms Sunita Aron, Senior Resident Editor, Hindustan Times; and Dr Rakesh Chandra, Director, Institute of Women Studies, University of Lucknow also addressed the roundtable attended by senior managers from leading corporates from Lucknow and several other cities in UP. Jayant Krishna, Head-TCS Lucknow moderated the session and quoted an expert, “There is in every true woman's heart, a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity, but which kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.”

Everyone agreed that the problem is on the supply-side of qualified women as well as on the demand-side of the equation. Panelists also agreed that maintaining work-life balance for women with families and leadership corporate roles is really not all that difficult but women have to make a choice at crucial moments in their lives.

Over 125 delegates from TCS, Tata Motors, Tata Teleservices, Indian Hotels, Airtel, HDFC Bank, Amity University, University of Lucknow, UNICEF, Sahara India, Aegis BPO, The Times of India and Hindustan Times attended the participative event spanning cities like Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi and Allahabad.