Nasscom Chief Criticizes Tech Giants' Diversity Backtrack

Mumbai, Feb 25 (PTI) Indian IT industry body Nasscom's chairperson Sindhu Gangadharan termed the scaling back on diversity agenda by global tech majors like Meta and Amazon as "unfortunate", and exhorted companies to stick to their core beliefs.

Gangadharan, who also serves as the managing director of SAP India, said none of these corporations have abandoned their commitment to the diversity, equity and inclusion agenda, because a company cannot win at the global level if it does not inculcate such beliefs.

"It is absolutely unfortunate that certain messages out there from large companies are mainly driven by political motivations, less about companies going back on their core cultures," she said at an event here.

These statements by tech majors will lead to a "negative ripple effect" across the world, Gangadharan feared.

Later, speaking to PTI on the sidelines of the annual Nasscom Technology Leadership Forum here, she said companies have to stick to their core beliefs.

Replying to a question on how someone may be concerned about companies' conduct even in India amid a shift to majoritarian attitudes, Gangadharan said, "we have to stay for our (values) and be the role model. Because when companies become successful and companies who have stuck to the core values as I said, that sets the precedence for the rest. And that is super important."

Gangadharan also made it clear that SAP India and also the Indian tech ecosystem are committed to the diversity agenda.

"We are inclusive, we bring the best on the table. Doesn't matter what gender, what belief system, what faith... it doesn't matter, this is where when you have the value system deeply ingrained, I think the behaviours will continue. That is my strong belief," she said.

The need for being diverse does not come from a commitment to diversity alone, but has its roots in the customers' needs, she said.

If a company wants to take its products global, it has to make sure that the diversity is ingrained while building the products, building the data models and training the algorithms, she said.

"... How can it be that your leadership or your development or product team cannot be diverse? For me it is as fundamental as that," she said.