Photo Credit: Antara Mrinal
Clear Cut CSR Desk
New Delhi, UPDATED: Oct 29, 2025 12:10 IST
Written By: Antara Mrinal
Amid the clamor of cargo-handling cranes and the hum of India’s ports a different kind of momentum is forming. On 28-30 October 2025, the JW Marriott Sahar in Mumbai will become home to Women in Maritime – the SheEO Conference, a three-day programme held during India Maritime Week that incorporates career fairs, leadership summits and industry fora to highlight women’s progression into the maritime and logistics ecosystem, typically dominated by men. This is not simply a gathering of inspiration – this is a programme that will create genuine avenues to employment, leadership and corporate social responsibility (CSR) interventions that have the potential to diversify this sector for decades to come.
What’s Happening at SheEO
SheEO’s agenda is explicitly focused on practical outcomes. The agenda for Day One, titled ‘Believe & Achieve’ focuses on a career fair and a Future Leaders Forum – a matchmaking opportunity for students, cadets and early-career professionals to meet with recruiters and mentorship networks to consider shipboard and shore-based opportunities. Day Two transitions into Leadership, Inclusion & Innovation with a series of panels of senior corporate executives, policy influencers and technologists. Day three concludes the conversation, with CSR and workforce development woven into the discussions with sessions designed to convert momentum into tangible hiring and retention strategies. The conference also includes exhibitions and networking events tailored to connect corporates with education providers and NGO partners.
Why This Matters Now
The maritime sector stands at a turning point: it faces labor shortages, pressures to decarbonize, and rapid digital transformation. Women are an underutilized talent pool whose participation can add resilience, expand perspectives in boardrooms and the supply chain, and help fulfill corporate social responsibility gaps that companies increasingly need to demonstrate to shareholders and regulators. Additionally, industry-specific initiatives, like targeted recruitment pathways, seafarer wellbeing strategies, and shore job upskilling, can yield faster, measurable, and context-specific change than broad, generic, industry gender programs. The SheEO lens of careers plus corporate engagement is therefore strategic, not performative.
The Data: Change and the Gap
On an international scale, the data reveals both change and urgency. The International Maritime Organization – Women’s International Shipping & Trading Association (IMO-WISTA) Women in Maritime Survey 2024 indicates better representation in some shore-based roles, noting for example that women hold nearly 19% of national maritime authorities in surveyed Member States, but at sea women are still vastly underrepresented – only accounting for roughly 1% of seafarers reported in the survey. The report also notes uneven progress in leader representation, reiterating that change is slow, and not uniform across geographies or job roles (International Maritime Organization).
India’s progress is promising, but still not uniform. Government announcements point to high growth in the number of registered women seafarers – a reported increase of 739% from 1,699 in 2015 to 14,255 in 2024 – largely attributed to recruiting, scholarships, and specific initiatives such as ‘Sagar Mein Samman’. However, women still represent only a small part of the personnel at sea and do still have some challenges with retention as workplaces, facilities onboard, and career paths all change slowly (Press Information Bureau).
Who’s in the Room
SheEO convenes a deliberately cross-cutting cast: Ministry officials, port authorities, shipping lines, crewing agencies, training academies, maritime unions, NGOs and CSR leaders all participate. International and professional organisations actively prioritising gender inclusion – from WISTA chapters to maritime professional institutes are also present. Exhibitors also include corporate companies, from port operators through to maritime technologies – creating a potential for both placement and partnership in many different facets. The participation of CSR teams is especially important; they are the link between the corporate intent to be inclusive and community or institutional investment in training to develop measurable pathways for women candidates.
CSR – From Cheque-Book Philanthropy to Strategic Workforce Investment
For organizations, supporting women entering maritime must go beyond isolated scholarships or awareness events. The more effective CSR models seen at SheEO are those that link training to certain job placements, provide gender-responsive environmental onboard accommodations, implement child care or family reconnection policies for shore-based staff, and subsidize mentorship programs that follow mentees for 2-3 years. This is the area where public-private partnerships (ports, shipping companies, training institutes, and civil society) can translate intentions into measurable workforce outcomes. The case studies presented at the conference aim to demonstrate a return on social investments; increased retention, improved safety culture and new talent streams into shore analytics, naval architecture, port operations, and logistics planning.
Looking Forward: Defining Success
Success will not come down to a single headline figure and instead be based on a constellation of indicators; higher percentages of women in cadet intakes, increased retention beyond the initial five years, more women in senior technical and executive positions, and CSR programs demonstrably placing participants into professional pathways. Most importantly, it will be about shifting the narrative – maritime as a viable, respected pathway for women – and aligning training, hiring, and corporate policy to reinforce that narrative. The SheEO Conference is intended to be an accelerant: a venue where commitments are made and come with recruitment calendars, MOUs, and funding models that can be refreshed and tracked over time (International Maritime Organization).
As the conference takes place in Mumbai, the sector will surely be observing whether SheEO becomes a moment or a movement-starter. Based on recent statistics and the enthusiasm of organisations who are involved, it suggests that the Indian maritime sector is taking a business case for gender inclusion seriously, now comes the heavier lifting of converting speaking points into on-the-water occupations and boardroom seats.
