‘CREW has Helped Increase Women’s Representation to 35% within Godrej Properties as of 31st March 2025’: Megha Goel

In an exclusive interaction with CXO media and APAC Media; Megha Goel, CHRO, Godrej Properties has delved deep into a pioneering initiative by Godrej aimed at increasing the representation, voice, and visibility of women in the real estate sector. With CREW, Godrej is not just challenging the industry’s gender norms—but setting a bold precedent for equitable leadership and talent development.

What led to the creation of Collective of Real Estate Women (CREW)? Was there a specific gap or insight that catalysed this initiative at Godrej Properties?

As a high-performance and growth organisation, Godrej Properties needed talent for the business. We realised that a sector operating with just 12% women presents a real dearth of talent in the workforce. This was even lower for the civil engineering team, where women were often discouraged from pursuing the course and nudged towards alternate career options. It remains extremely rare to find women apprentices, labourers and supervisors in the sector. The presence is estimated to be less than 1%.

Furthermore, among those who did pursue and joined the workforce, they were guided to seek desk jobs instead of being encouraged to lead teams or manage construction activities. The infrastructure sector has been male-dominated, which has led to limited inclusivity and further attrition of women talent, particularly at mid-management stages. We witnessed similar representation gaps across other key verticals like sales, even though nearly 50% of our consumers are women.

Challenges around inclusion, when left unaddressed over long periods, tend to become systemic norms. This can create a wider impact on sectoral growth.

The future for any thriving business is in building non-discriminatory, all-inclusive, and authentic organizations. This was the genesis of CREW.

Godrej Properties had already taken early steps in this direction. 29% of our workforce were women, and another 2% were from the LGBTQIA+ community. We understood that GPL would need to take the lead in building inclusive talent ecosystems and enabling policy structures for the sector at large.

How does CREW align with Godrej Properties’ broader ESG or diversity strategy? Are there defined goals or KPIs tied to its success?

CREW is a strategic component of GPL’s broader DEI and ESG strategies and contributes to the company’s ESG agenda by promoting social equity and inclusion. It is designed to address gender disparities and build inclusive workplaces in real estate. The initiative focuses on educating women about the sector, encouraging them through visible role modelling, supporting capability-building, and enabling structured networking.

CREW has already helped us achieve tangible progress, including a steady increase in women’s representation within Godrej Properties. We are targeting 35% representation of women by 31st March 2025, and CREW is a key lever to drive this forward.

Looking ahead, we will be focusing on cross-sector collaborations and public-private partnerships to help shape sustainable and inclusive environments beyond our organization.

Real estate has historically been a male-dominated sector. What specific challenges does CREW aim to address for women in this industry?

Real estate is indeed a field that has remained traditionally male-dominated and has seen limited reforms in the talent landscape. Achieving sustainable change requires long-term investment in nurturing talent through planned initiatives that support the entry, retention, and growth of talent.

CREW has just initiated this journey with a focus to tackle the following challenges:

1. Underrepresentation of women in the workforce; including leadership roles.
2. Address the gender pay parity gap in the sector.
3. Education of women to choose construction and allied services, as a long term academic and career opportunity.
4. Lack of role models, mentorship and networking opportunities.
5. Support with building achievable and relatable career paths
6. Gender bias and stereotyping.
7. Pressures to manage life transitions and work-life integration in non-supportive work environments.
8. Retention of women talent in the sector, esp. at mid management and senior leadership roles.

How do you view the current state of gender equity across India’s real estate sector, particularly in leadership and field roles?

While some progress is being made, gender parity across roles and functions continues to remain a significant area of opportunity.

In leadership roles, there is an improved representation of women across functions like architecture, legal, marketing, and HR. However, representation in core P&L, technical, and sales roles is still limited.

In field roles, site execution, project management, and on-ground engineering roles women representation is minimal compared to male counterparts due to longstanding cultural perceptions, safety concerns, and a lack of enabling infrastructure. Many women face barriers not only at entry level but also in growing and sustaining careers across these functions. In construction trades, RCC/masonry, Carpentry, and plumbing.

It is extremely difficult to find women due to a lack of awareness, visible success stories, and traditional mindsets like “women do not pick up bricks and mortar”. These are the key line skills that lead to further growth into civil supervisory roles. Without targeted intervention, these patterns are likely to continue.

Do you envision CREW becoming an industry-wide platform or benchmark for diversity practices in real estate?

Yes, and it has already begun to do so within the first year of its launch. We see an average attendance of 250-300 women per event, irrespective of the day (a weekday or a weekend). So far, we have engaged with over 1500 women across age groups and professional levels. This is because the purpose, structure, and intent of CREW go beyond symbolic representation and are focused on promoting structural change as they are designed to create meaningful opportunities for networking, capability building, and real role modelling.

CREW is also focused on the following key aspects:

1. As a Thought Leadership Platform: By sharing learnings, best practices, and case studies, CREW can inspire other organizations to build robust diversity strategies, tailored to real estate’s unique context.
2. As a Cross-Industry Collaboration Model: CREW will partner with other developers, industry associations, academic institutions, and skill-building platforms to create sector-wide standards for gender inclusion, especially in field roles and leadership pipelines.
3. As a Talent Brand Catalyst: Over time, CREW can help position real estate as a more attractive and inclusive career option for women across educational institutions and organizations, bridging the gender gap that has long characterized this sector.

What are your thoughts on regulatory or industry pressure (such as board diversity mandates) in pushing organizations toward inclusive hiring?

Regulatory guidelines and diversity mandates often play an important role in nudging organizations toward more inclusive hiring. While true inclusion is a lived experience, mandates act as necessary accelerators, especially in traditionally underrepresented sectors like real estate. Board diversity requirements, for example, are most impactful, bringing critical conversations at the highest levels of leadership.

For example, At Godrej Properties, we have 50% representation of women among our independent directors, and they bring in real intent towards shaping our inclusive practices, progress of DEI initiatives, and driving meaningful actions that drive systemic change.

Another example is the inclusion of workplace safety and harassment discussions in formal board governance. This ensures compliance with the POSH (Prevention of Sexual Harassment) Act while also signalling that safe, respectful workplaces are a leadership priority and not a compliance checklist.

However, mandates alone do not guarantee sustained inclusion. Without strong intent and leadership, they risk becoming tokenistic. Similarly, mandates around hiring %, if not backed by investment in capability-building sometimes leads to hiring of incapable and incompetent candidates that could impact the overall culture and performance at an organization and may undermine trust in diversity efforts.

The focus should remain on building equitable structures that support performance, growth, and inclusion for all.

How are you ensuring CREW is not perceived as a siloed “women’s initiative,” but rather as a cultural movement across genders and roles?

That’s a critical consideration and something we’ve been intentional about from the start. Real inclusion is a cultural and behavioural movement that allows all employees, across genders and roles, to participate in reshaping how inclusion is lived. Our vision is to build a non-discriminatory, inclusive, and equitable workplace; thus, we have categorically steered away from tokenistic initiatives like building 100% women teams or designing learning programs only for women.

Inclusion is about learning with empathy and not about isolation. It is about appreciating the other perspective and celebrating our differences. At work, it should lead to collaboration, shared space, shared understanding, and shared goals. Just like male-dominated bastions, businesses and society stand to limit their gains even with 100% women-dominated teams. do not automatically deliver inclusion either.

Here’s how we look to make that vision real:

1. Allyship: CREW actively engages male allies, especially leaders and managers. The chapter launched last year had a healthy participation of male employees across all cities.
2. Leadership sponsorship: Senior leaders, including our promoters, are involved in championing CREW. This sends a strong message that inclusion is a foundational value first and then a strategic priority.
3. Authentic storytelling: As we share role model stories, none is complete without mention of their male counterparts, colleagues, and managers who have played enabling roles. We celebrate each one of them.
4. Contemporary societal norms: Policies like paternity leaves (at GPL, we have a 2-month leave for secondary caregivers) it helps us move the needle towards futuristic societal norms.
5. Trans women are women too: CREW actively invites participation from trans women, in addition to cis women.
6. Culture building: CREW also manages GPL’s internal ERGs and leads internal communication, sensitization, role modelling, and capability building at GPL and thus actively engages with people managers and leaders.

CREW is not a one-off initiative. It is positioned as a leadership and culture-building framework within GPL and the sector at large.

What advice would you give to other CHROs or business leaders trying to drive real DEI change in sectors resistant to transformation? 

True inclusion starts with sincerity, not perfection. Thus, it is extremely important to start. Simple.

I would recommend that we establish the real intent. Real DEI change requires authentic listening, deep sense to address equity and a strong reason to stand-up for it, always. I would add here that, inclusion needs performance to prosper. It is impossible to bring authentic inclusion if a particular cohort of employees is considered “quota”.  Performance fosters respect and fairness; and once that is established – that is the first foundation of allyship.

Drawing from our experience at Godrej Properties, here are key principles that have guided our journey:

1. Anchor DEI:  It is important to position DEI as a core business and value imperative – this drives intent and leadership commitment. It doesn’t work if this is a peripheral initiative. Having said that, even if the intent is transactional, I would always recommend starting – the world needs every drop of inclusivity and goodness.
2. Establish fairness and equity: Quotas don’t work in long-term. Real DEI has the capacity to thrive for long-term and once fairness is established; it facilitates to build further inclusion. For example, at GPL we started with women representation. Our teams know that non-performing women colleagues will be treated like non-performing men. This principle established the foundation for us to hire LGBTQIA+ and PwD employees as well.
3. Secure Leadership Commitment: Once we have established the purpose and fairness, it is a strong base to get your senior leaders champion DEI at the highest levels – through endorsement, participation and real visible actions. Further, it helps to establish accountability mechanisms. At GPL, all our senior leaders carry this as a 15% goal.
4. Foster allyship: Invest in training leaders to recognize and mitigate biases, promote inclusive behaviours, and create environments where all employees feel valued and empowered to contribute. Encourage participation from all employees, regardless of gender, in DEI initiatives. Programs like CREW at Godrej Properties aim to create a cultural movement that transcends gender, fostering an inclusive environment where everyone feels responsible for driving change.
5. Show up with empathy: Real DEI is about engaging and listening to provide sustainable solutions. At GPL, we have a continuous listening platform where employees can write to us confidentially. We launched the trans accommodation policy because one of our newly hired trans woman was denied accommodation by a residential society. We understand that maternity is not a 6-month leave but a year-long commitment.