P&G Health India hosts the first Women in Healthcare Summit

Procter & Gamble (P&G) organized the first “Women in Healthcare” Summit. The summit highlighted the various career opportunities available for women in the pharma industry and healthcare sector. It managed to bring together nearly 1,000 students from the 14 pharmacy colleges of the region to discuss in detail the opportunities and careers with eminent women leaders and the Procter & Gamble (P&G) ‘s Health Leadership Team.

Milind Thatte observed, “Statistics show that the average representation of women in sales is relatively low, in the healthcare industry. At P&G Health, we are committed to fostering a culture of equality and inclusion in the company, extending to our work in the industry. Our constant endeavor is to ensure we provide equal opportunities at the workplace. The ‘Women in Healthcare’ Summit is an effort toward this initiative. Through the newly instituted ‘P&G Scholarship Programme,’ we will also provide an opportunity to deserving girl students, thereby facilitating their choice of careers in the sector.” She is the managing director of Procter & Gamble (P&G) Health India.

Women healthcare leaders attending the summit covered a wide range of topics ranging from breaking the gender bias to sharing their own experiences at their workplace under the section ‘My Story.’

The engagement of the summit with the participating pharmacy colleges began with a competition that invited participants to share some innovative and implementable solutions for some real-world challenges which either prevent women from joining the pharma workforce or limit their career growth in any way in healthcare and pharma sectors. Some of these challenges include access to health and hygiene resources on the go, concerns about physical safety, concerns about psychological safety, etc. The participants that won awards for their novel ideas were Ms. Gourang Hari Gupta, Ms. Vaidehi Bhavsar, and Mr. Ashish Sahu from the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research of Ahmedabad, the solution ‘track heath .’ Pratiksha Jadhav and Anand More from the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research of Ahmedabad won for the’ Physical’ solution. Sneha Kumari and Soundarya Thanvi from the Vivekanand Education Society’s College of Pharmacy won for solutions in health and hygiene.

In addition to facilitating intellectual discussions and perspective sharing on careers in healthcare at the summit, Procter & Gamble (P&G) Health also announced a scholarship program for the deserving girls pursuing any pharmaceutical courses in partnership with the Centre for Civil Society. Apart from providing financial support to deserving students from these participating colleges, the scholarship will offer better mentoring opportunities to some high-potential students to help them build their rewarding careers in the sector.

Bhargavi Kakunuri, the director of Human Resources at Procter & Gamble (P&G) Health India, stated, “We have a proactive action plan called i-RISE, which focuses on recruiting more women in partnership with colleges, institutionalizing growth by identifying and training women talent to take up leadership positions.”

India’s pharma industry has gained attention from the commercial enterprises of the country ever since the COVID-19 pandemic. As the nation fought the pandemic, One observed that the pharma and health care sector was quite powerful and yet not without its challenges to deal with. The women in the pharma and health care sector still face several challenges and threats such as workplace harassment, gender bias, glass ceiling, etc. The initiatives such as this “Women in Healthcare” Summit by Procter & Gamble (P&G) and the company’s scholarships will help empower women in the industry to fight these challenges under the guidance of good mentors.