Sangita Singh, a senior vice president at Wipro Ltd., India’s third-largest software exporter by sales, is one of the few women to rise up the ranks in an industry dominated by men. The 44-year-old mother of a young teenager is the only woman to have ever led a business unit at the Bangalore-based outsourcing firm.

Despite growth in India’s $110 billion information technology industry, few women are seen at the helm of operations in the sector. Ms. Singh says companies are growing conscious about the lack of representation of women at key positions. “I would be very surprised if, in the next five years, you don’t have women in senior positions at Indian IT companies,” she says, adding that firms, including her own, have recently made an effort to recruit more women staff.

At Wipro, where Ms. Singh’s career has spanned two decades, the IT executive has donned several hats, including the role of chief marketing officer and the head of the company’s business applications software unit.

This week on India Real Time’s  “Women at Work” series , Ms. Singh speaks about why few Indian women venture into the world of business, the challenges of being a female executive, and what organizations can do to retain women employees.

Edited excerpts:

The Wall Street Journal: At what stage do Indian women decide to pull the plug on their careers?

Ms. Singh: When a woman starts her career, she is young, ambitious, and wanting to make a difference. You see a lot of women in that stage. In fact, they do better than men at that stage. The real challenge is when they reach the crossroads, when they have to get married or have kids.

WSJ: What can organizations do to prevent this?

Ms. Singh: Most of the organizations have started opening crèches and offering some form of flexible working hours to such women. But they have not been able to address the softer aspects around it, which is mentoring, counseling, or the relationship with the individual at that time, to give them courage and motivation.

Organizations have to take personal interest in giving such women flexibility to take breaks. It can’t just be lip service. Give them roles where they can balance both family and work and get past that crossroads stage.

Even society can play a role in terms of making sure that they instill a sense of pride in women wanting to achieve their best.

WSJ: What challenges have you faced as a woman executive?

Ms. Singh: The crossroads stage was the toughest one. One has to have supreme motivation to be able to ride through this stage.

Also, people have very low expectations about what a woman will bring to the table. So if they do well, it’s good, but if they don’t, it is fine.

WSJ: What mistakes do women often make at the workplace?

Ms. Singh: Sometimes, women themselves create barriers. They don’t take the initiative to network. As a result, there could be an issue of access, because you are not known enough. Networking may come easily to a man, but it doesn’t to a woman.

What is important is to be aware of those things. If you are conscious about it and start working on it, it will help you. If you think that you are not being included in a network, you have to take that initiative of networking with people. Don’t wait for organizational mandates to say you need to have a woman chief executive, because you have had three men CEOs. You be the agent of change and demonstrate those traits that they would need in a leader.

At the end of the day, everybody wants to run a successful business. If you have the ability to deliver a successful business, leaders will take that call of you being at the head of affairs. A lot of the onus today lies on us rather than the organization.

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source: http://www.blogs.wsj.com /  The Wall Street Journal – India / India Real Time / Home> Economy & Business> Article / by Dhanya Ann Thoppil / July 01st, 2013