Leaders who listen: Making inclusion the heart of India’s digital boom

Bringing together leaders from across sectors, the HER Leadership @ AWS ExecLeaders Summit 2025 set the tone for bold conversations around innovation, equity, and impact. With a focus on shaping India’s digital future, the summit opened with a fireside chat focused on a timely and critical topic: technology, transformation, and the rise of inclusive leadership.

Hosted as part of the HER Leadership platform, which celebrates women leaders and allies across industries, the session featured Anna Roy, Principal Economic Adviser, NITI Aayog and Sandeep Dutta, President, India & South Asia, AWS, in conversation with business journalist Sonia Shenoy. The discussion explored how inclusion, technology, and leadership intersect in both public policy and enterprise.

What inclusive leadership looks like

Anna reflected on how leadership dynamics have evolved over the past few decades. Drawing from her experience in the government, she emphasized that while policy frameworks are largely in place, consistent implementation and accountability remain key.

“We have all the right policies,” she said. “The challenge isn’t policy; it’s implementation and compliance. That’s where leadership in the corporate sector becomes crucial.”

She cited the government’s efforts to support caregivers, including paternity and childcare leave, and pointed to ongoing collaborations between ministries to improve access to services such as nutrition, particularly for young children.

From a corporate perspective, Sandeep spoke about inclusive leadership as a foundation for building high-trust environments. Quoting Ratan Tata, he shared: “Leadership is not about being in charge, it’s about taking care of those in your charge.”

As a leader throughout his career, Sandeep has focused on building trust, being accessible, and creating room for employees to bring their full selves to work. “If people see that you have their back and are willing to fight for their cause, the message gets across.”

Redefining women entrepreneurship

The discussion also touched on entrepreneurship, particularly women’s participation in the startup and MSME ecosystem. While official estimates often cite that around 14–15% of Indian entrepreneurs are women, Anna questioned the underlying definitions being used.

“Is a woman running a salon from home not an entrepreneur? Is a farmer using tech-enabled solutions not an entrepreneur?” she asked.

To address this, NITI Aayog has been expanding its definition of entrepreneurship through the Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP), which aggregates over 800 government schemes mapped to six key ecosystem needs, such as skilling, access to finance, and market linkage. The goal, she explained, is to make existing resources discoverable, especially for those operating outside urban startup networks.

Building for India and the world

The conversation shifted to how India’s digital infrastructure is being leveraged to build scalable, inclusive systems. Sandeep cited the example of UPI, which currently supports over 18 billion transactions per month, all settled in real time, something few global systems match.

He also pointed to government initiatives powered by AWS, including the Portion Tracker program run by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, which supports over 100 million beneficiaries, most of whom are children under six. In the energy sector, tech-enabled LPG subsidy tracking has reduced onboarding time from three weeks to three days and subsidy payout times from 15 days to less than eight hours.

Anna added that DigiYatra, the facial recognition-powered airport check-in system, was developed through a collaborative effort between NITI Aayog, AWS, and other partners. She noted that NITI’s early focus on emerging technologies helped accelerate solutions that are now operating at a national scale.

Applying AI to solve real problems

The session closed with a focus on generative AI and how it can be applied across sectors, not as a trend, but as a practical tool for solving access and discovery challenges.

Anna outlined ongoing AI initiatives at NITI Aayog, such as the National Data Analytics Portal, which is being integrated with an AI engine to surface insights from thousands of structured and unstructured datasets, including economic surveys, policy papers, and press releases. The AI tool will enable users to pose questions and receive synthesized answers, improving access to government data for citizens, researchers, and policymakers.

She also spoke about efforts to integrate AI into the Women Entrepreneurship Platform, using intelligent chatbots to respond to user queries in real time and eventually support multilingual access. “Knowledge is gender-agnostic,” she said. “Our goal is to remove barriers to access, not just through new policies, but by making existing information easier to find and use.”

A forward-looking start to the summit

The fireside chat set the context for the broader themes of the HER Leadership at AWS ExecLeaders Summit 2025, and how organizations, governments, and individuals can work together to embed inclusive leadership at the core of technological and business transformation.

As leaders continue to adopt AI, scale innovation, and build equitable workplaces, the session served as a reminder that inclusive leadership is not just a priority; it is a critical part of how enterprises will move forward.