Ask Insights
Gender Intelligence: A Corporate Gender Sensitization Training Program in India by ASK Insights
ASK Insights runs Gender Intelligence, a corporate gender sensitization training program in India built to move past awareness sessions and into measurable culture change. The flagship program has been delivered inside PepsiCo, Hindalco, Reckitt, and Jubilant Ingrevia, each with results tracked over years, not a single workshop’s feedback scores.
What Is Gender Intelligence?
Gender Intelligence is ASK Insights’ answer to a common complaint about standard gender sensitization: that it teaches people what not to say without giving them anything to actually do differently. The program is built around what ASK Insights calls an Equal but Different approach, treating men and women as equal in value while acknowledging that they often process situations, communicate, and lead differently, then building practical skills around that difference instead of pretending it away.
The grounding is not just philosophical. Dr. Akshay Kumar, who holds a PhD in Clinical and Positive Psychology and lectures at London Business School, brings a research background in how people actually think and behave to the program’s design. That is a different starting point from generic diversity messaging.
Gender Sensitization Training Program in India: How Is Gender Intelligence Different?
Three things separate this from a standard sensitization workshop.
Equal but Different, Not Equal Meaning Same
Traditional sensitization often asks one group to simply adjust to the other. Gender Intelligence starts from brain science research on how men and women tend to process situations differently, then teaches leaders to work with that difference instead of flattening it.
Built for Buy-In From Everyone
Programs that focus only on correcting one group’s behaviour tend to lose the room. Gender Intelligence is designed to secure genuine buy-in from both men and women, since a session men sit through defensively rarely changes what happens back on the floor.
Measured, Not Just Delivered
Every rollout is paired with tracked outcomes, representation numbers, retention, promotion rates, not a post-session satisfaction survey, so an organization can see whether the training actually moved anything.
Results From the Field
The clearest evidence is in ASK Insights’ long running client work. At PepsiCo, where Gender Intelligence has run since 2012 across finance, sales, and R&D, women’s representation at senior executive levels more than tripled, from 8.8 percent in 2020 to 29.4 percent in 2023, and the company’s mid management gender diversity ratio of 39 percent now sits well above the FMCG industry benchmark of 27 percent.
At Hindalco, Gender Intelligence sessions for the top leadership team and 1,500 managers and frontline staff across the company’s plants preceded a rise in women’s plant employment from 10 percent to 30 percent within six months. At Jubilant Ingrevia, a Gender Intelligence rollout covering 285 people managers accompanied a jump in women’s representation from 3 percent to 10 percent, also within six months. Reckitt ran a similar program for its sales teams at RB Hygiene India as part of a broader inclusive leadership push.
Satish Pai, Managing Director of Hindalco, described the session with his leadership team as giving the group new insight into gender intelligence and how to harness the full potential of both genders in the organization, after attending gender diversity forums for years.
At ABB, a related unconscious bias and allyship track ran alongside a six year Gender Intelligence and women’s leadership push called RISE, which closed with 92 percent of participants completing the program and gender diversity moving from 9 percent to 16.5 percent between 2018 and 2021. None of these numbers come from a single quarter. Each client relationship has run for multiple years, which is part of why the representation changes tend to hold once the training calendar moves on, instead of quietly reverting.
Who Is Gender Intelligence Built For?
The program fits organizations at a specific point in their DEI work: past the initial awareness stage and looking for something with teeth. That includes companies wanting a genuinely different approach to gender instead of a repeat of the same sensitization deck, organizations prioritizing gender equity as a stated goal, and businesses that see gender diversity as a decision making advantage, not a compliance line item. It also suits leadership teams specifically trying to improve how they manage mixed gender teams, and organizations addressing a known problem such as bias in promotions or underrepresentation in a particular function. Manufacturing and plant based organizations tend to see the fastest visible movement, since frontline representation gaps are usually the most measurable and the most stubborn without a dedicated program behind them.
What Is the Expertise Behind Gender Intelligence?
Dr. Niru Kumar, MBBS, Founder and CEO of ASK Insights and a Padma Shri recipient, has led Gender Intelligence sessions personally for organizations including PepsiCo and Hindalco, working directly with leadership teams instead of delegating flagship client relationships to junior consultants. Dr. Akshay Kumar, who holds a PhD in Clinical and Positive Psychology, lectures at London Business School, and previously held a tenured position at the University of East London, shapes the program’s grounding in brain science and behavioural research.
Both consultants work across ASK Insights’ broader Developmental Journeys practice, so a Gender Intelligence rollout can connect into related tracks such as Women Leadership or Creating Allies instead of sitting as an isolated session. Rollouts are also paired with ASK Insights’ Audits and Assessments practice where an organization wants a baseline before training starts, particularly when representation data is the metric leadership actually cares about.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Can You Bring Gender Intelligence to Your Organization?
If your organization has already run gender sensitization training and the numbers still have not moved, ASK Insights can walk your HR team through how Gender Intelligence would run for your leadership and teams.