As the world celebrates International Women’s Day 2026, this year’s theme “Give to Gain” underscores a powerful principle: when organizations actively invest in empowering women through opportunities, mentorship, and leadership pathways, industries and societies gain stronger innovation, resilience, and long-term growth. In the context of the global clean energy transition, this message carries particular significance. The renewable energy sector is entering a phase defined not only by rapid technological advancement but also by the need for a highly capable and diverse workforce that can design, operate, and manage complex energy systems.
On International Women’s Day, women leaders highlighted their pivotal role in advancing innovation and building trust across India’s clean energy sector.
Reflecting on the importance of inclusive workforce development within the renewable energy industry,
Ms. Beenal Raychura, Head HR, ENGIE India
“ India’s renewable energy transition will be shaped as much by talent as by technology or capital. As the country scales hybrid and storage infrastructure, success will increasingly depend on who is designing, operating, and leading these complex systems. Diversity strengthens judgement, sharpens risk management, and reinforces the disciplined operating cultures that large-scale infrastructure demands.
For our sector, inclusion must therefore be structural, not symbolic. It means creating visible leadership pathways, enabling active sponsorship, and embedding mentorship into the way teams are built and grown. At ENGIE, this intent translates into action through a combination of classroom learning, ENGIE University, and structured mentorship programmes. This focus on capability-building is anchored in a strong safety culture, reflected in more 33+ MN safe man-hours achieved over a decade of operations in India.
Infrastructure at national scale calls for both depth of expertise and diversity of perspective. Building teams that bring together both is central to how we execute projects, manage risk, and deliver long-term energy security for India.”
Shreya Mishra, Co-founder and CEO, SolarSquare
Shreya Mishra is leading SolarSquare with a clear consumer promise: rooftop solar should be as simple and trusted as a household appliance. A serial entrepreneur who previously founded Flyrobe, she pivoted to climate-tech to build a brand and operating model designed for scale across Indian homes, housing societies, and small businesses.
Under her leadership, SolarSquare has powered more than 20,000 homes and 200 housing societies, expanded to 20-plus cities, and raised $59.5 million to date from investors including Lightspeed, Elevation Capital, Lightrock, Lowercarbon Capital, and Rainmatter. She has also pushed product and process innovation, including WindPRO Mount, described as India’s first cyclone-proof rooftop solar structure, alongside easy financing and clearer ROI pathways to widen adoption. In 2025–26, she was featured on the Hurun India U40 list, as the youngest woman entrepreneur on the list.
What makes her a defining Women’s Day leader is not just scale, but intent: treating quality and trust as the real accelerators of clean energy.
Radhika Choudary, Co-founder and Director, Freyr Energy
Radhika Choudary’s work sits in the part of rooftop solar that decides whether the category becomes mainstream: execution. Rooftop solar is a high-friction purchase. Customers worry about design, service, warranties, maintenance, and whether the installer will pick up the phone six months later.
Choudary represents a leadership style built for this reality: removing confusion, strengthening delivery discipline, and making adoption easier for households and small businesses. In a sector where one bad installation can damage trust for an entire neighbourhood, this kind of operational leadership is climate impact in its most practical form.
Vaishali Nigam Sinha, Co-founder and Chairperson, Sustainability, ReNew
Big renewables win headlines with scale, but they earn legitimacy through governance. Vaishali Nigam Sinha’s work highlights why the energy transition is not only an engineering story, it is also a credibility story. As a sustainability leader in one of India’s best-known renewable platforms, she represents the push to embed climate responsibility into strategy, not just reporting.
Her Women’s Day relevance is direct: when women sit at the table where risk, ethics, and long-term accountability are decided, the transition becomes stronger, not softer.
Tanya Singhal, Founder, SolarArise; Founder, Mynzo Carbon
Tanya Singhal’s journey captures a shift in the clean energy world: building is not enough anymore. Measuring and proving impact is becoming just as important. With experience spanning solar and climate-tech, she represents the move from asset creation to climate intelligence, where companies are expected to track emissions, report credibly, and make decisions backed by data.
In the Women’s Day context, her work signals a bigger truth: women are not only leading deployment, they are also shaping the standards of accountability that will define the next decade of climate action.
Nidhi Gupta, Co-founder and Director, Rays Experts; Founder, Mighty Avengers Solar
Solar success is often judged by panels and payback, but the real test is time. Can the installation survive harsh summers, heavy rains, and high winds? That durability depends on the “unseen” layer: structures, materials, and engineering precision.
Nidhi Gupta’s work draws attention to this backbone of reliability. By operating in solar structures and manufacturing, she represents the part of the ecosystem that quietly raises standards across the industry. Her Women’s Day relevance is powerful because it reframes leadership: impact is not only what is visible, it is what holds.
If India wants rooftop solar to become truly mainstream, the market must behave like a consumer category: transparent, safe, service-led, and dependable. The women featured here are shaping exactly that future, where clean energy is not just installed, it is trusted.
Manisha Khadge, CMO, Mindbowser.Inc, HealthTech Consulting company
“It’s encouraging to see the growing impact women are making across India’s technology space. In my experience, more women today are contributing across engineering, product development, AI and digital strategy. Their perspectives often help teams look at challenges in new and more thoughtful ways. This growing presence is strengthening teams and also influencing how companies approach innovation and collaboration. In sectors like healthcare technology, this becomes even more important because the solutions we build directly affect patient outcomes. When different perspectives come together, the solutions tend to be more inclusive and practical.
However, the real opportunity goes beyond participation. It lies in enabling more women to step into leadership roles where they can influence strategic business and technology decisions. Organisations must continue building environments that support skill development, encourage experimentation and create clear pathways for women to advance into influential positions. Mentorship also plays an important role in this journey. One thing I have noticed over the years is that when experienced leaders actively guide and support the next generation, it builds confidence and opens doors for future growth. When women are empowered to lead, collaborate and innovate, the entire technology sector and the industries it supports become stronger.”
Mr. Sachin Alug, CEO, NLB Services
India’s green economy is projected to generate nearly 7.29 million jobs by FY28 and close to 35 million jobs by 2047. As we move toward the goal of a green economy, greater representation of women in the workforce will be essential to fostering a more equitable and sustainable growth ecosystem.
Today, women represent only around 30-32% of the global renewable energy workforce and 35-40% of India’s green economy. Most of these roles are concentrated in administrative and non-STEM functions, with limited representation in engineering, technical, and field-based roles.
Realizing the full potential of India’s green growth ambitions will require stronger progress toward gender parity. We anticipate women to constitute 20-25% of the 7.29 million and around 35% of 35 million jobs expected by FY28 and 2047, respectively. In the coming years, significant opportunities for women are expected in non-STEM roles such as sustainability reporting, ESG compliance, and green finance operations, ESG analytics and climate data analysis, while STEM-led roles are emerging in renewable energy engineering, electric mobility technologies, and green hydrogen ecosystems domains.
Cities such as Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Delhi will remain as major hubs for green employment and Tier-2 cities, including Jaipur, Indore, Visakhapatnam, Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, Bhubaneswar, and Chandigarh, are emerging as important employment zones. These cities are expected to contribute 30-35% of women’s participation in green jobs, with roles such as sustainable agriculture specialists, green logistics coordinators, and renewable energy technicians surging in Tier 2 regions. With the right policy push, targeted skilling, and inclusive hiring frameworks, women can play a decisive role in scaling India’s green economy.
As the renewable energy sector continues to evolve, the principle behind “Give to Gain” reinforces the importance of investing in people as much as technology. By creating environments where women can access leadership opportunities, mentorship, and skill development, the clean energy industry can strengthen its talent pipeline while accelerating the transition toward sustainable power systems.
In doing so, the sector not only advances gender inclusion but also builds the institutional capability required to deliver reliable, secure, and future-ready energy infrastructure for generations to come.
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