Chennai : Diversity & Inclusion pioneer, AVTAR Group in association with celebrated Gender parity champion, Working Mother today organized India’s largest D&I conference – Best of the Best Conference 2018, in the city. In an effort to celebrate and showcase the best in class workplace policies for women at India Inc, the one-day conference had over 23 speakers from different walks of life deliberating over key challenges, solutions in the journey of achieving 50-50 gender balance at workplace. The conference also recognized and awarded 100 companies from India as part of its annual flagship property Best Companies for Women in India 2018 amidst the presence of eminent industry veterans.

With power-packed sessions helmed by D&I practitioners, the conference also witnessed the launch of Dr. Saundarya Rajesh, Founder – President, AVTAR Group’s debut book and India’s first book on D&I practices – 99 Day Diversity Challenge. The second edition of the Male Ally Legacy Award was bestowed upon Vivek Kamath, Managing Director – MSD Pharmaceuticals Private Ltdas part of the one-day conference. Along with this, The Male Ally Legacy Choice of Jury award was conferred to Ravi Ramachandran, Head of Sales – Nestle Indiaand Sumer Dheri, Executive VP – Country Management Rx, GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals Ltd.  Instituted jointly by AVTAR Group and Working Mother, the award aims to bring to limelight male champions who promote and support gender inclusive policies at workplace.

Established this year, thefirst edition of CSR award was conferred onto Tata Communicationsunder the category Winner – 2018 Working Mother & AVTAR PUTHRI Award for Excellence in CSR. Accenture Solutions  Pvt Ltd and Ceat Ltd were recognized under the Choice of Jury -2018 Working Mother & AVTAR PUTHRI Award for Excellence in CSR category.

List of Top 10 Best Companies for Women in India 2018 are listed below. The complete Top 100 Best Companies for Women in India 2018 can be viewed at – (link): https://www.avtariwin.com/best-companies/winners2018. This is, strictly, an alphabetical listand is NOT RANKED.

• Accenture Solutions Private Limited
• ADP Private Limited
• Barclays Global Service Centre Pvt. Ltd.
• Deloitte in India
• EY
• IBM India Pvt Ltd
• Shell India Markets Pvt Ltd
• Tata Consultancy Services
• Tech Mahindra
• Verizon Data Services India Pvt. Ltd

The selection was based on data of highest order granularity spanning seven key policyclusters, namely, Workforce profile, Flexible work, Women’s recruitment and retention,Benefits & Work-Life Programs, Parental Leave, Company culture and Safety and security, asprovided by the applicant companies.