Vijay Ganapathy (KPMG, India) shares how KPMG has a Network of Women that provides a platform for people to voice their concerns around gender equality and non-discrimination and get them addressed.

I am Vijay. I represent KPMG in India. Basically, KPMG believes in equality. We have our values where gender has progressively been made part of the mainstream thinking. We have a very good network which is called KNOW — KMPG Network of Women — which basically talks about all these issues and they have their own meetings where they discuss what are the problems. This is something I consider to be a very important initiative as it provides a platform for people to voice their concerns and to get them addressed.

At KPMG, there is constant gender training going on which talks about gender equality and non-discrimination. And the main beneficiaries are actually men who get to learn about gender awareness. Your ideas change as you are guided through these workshops. This is a very important initiative that KMPG has instituted for gender awareness.

The business case is flowing from our values and it is built into our values. There is nothing beyond that. It is intrinsic that equality is something very important and it needs to be reflected in our actions. Rather than saying "how is this helping us monetarily" it is part and parcel of each individual and it is part of the principle of values that need to be adapted.

One thing, when we mention a lot of points and figures, I would like to add a visual. For example, when we talk of ratios. Let's put it as a pyramid or balance to transcend any language and culture barriers: Gender at the management level — how many men and how many women? Gender at upper management level: how many men, how many women? We need to make an effort to communicate in pictures in addition to numbers to get our message out.