Names that rule the boards

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Corporate India has been receiving demands for affirmative action for adequate representation of underprivileged classes in its workforce. Industry bodies have drawn up plans for inclusive HR policies. But, how much of this has percolated up to the boardrooms? In the absence of any reporting of employment based on community by companies, the only clues are names.

An analysis of Prime Database's surname data by N Sundaresha Subramanian shows Agarwal and its variants emerged as the most common surname with 344 directorship, followed by Gupta (281) and Jain (270). Goenkas led the list of board seats among top business families. Nearly a fifth (18.2 %) of all directors came from these two groups.

Though the dataset comprised 3,500 unique surnames, surnames commonly identified as Banias, the prominent business community, accounted for over 10%of all directorship. The top 10 names within this group alone accounted for 1,170 or 9.33% of all directorship. But, the names do not strictly imply a particular community, as naming practices vary on multiple factors such as language, region and state. Nor do they suggest they are on the boards because of their surnames.