Sunita Thawani, Founder CEO of ‘Full Circle’ is an accomplished professional with senior management and Board Room experience.
Sunita has 25 years of rich legal working experience with the Tata Group. She started her career as a lawyer in the Supreme Court of India after 12 years of break joined Tata Steel where she worked in various capacities. In 2004, she successfully took up the challenging task of setting up the legal department of Jamshedpur Utilities and Companies Ltd (Jusco) a Tata Enterprise and 100% subsidiary of Tata Steel where she headed the legal function as DGM (Legal), for ten years.
She was chairperson of Internal Complaints Committee of Jusco for Prevention of Sexual Harassment for ten years and brought several cases to successful conclusion.
She conducts statutorily mandatory workshops on awareness of Sexual Harassment for employees including senior management and orientation and skill building program for Internal Committee members on the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013. In these highly interactive workshops, she combines her unique combination of legal knowledge, deep interest in gender issues with practical experience.
She was invited to read a paper on ‘How to prevent Sexual Harassment at workplaces in India’ in the World Women Congress 2014 at Hyderabad.
She is advising several organizations in this space and was invited by the Government of India to give her suggestions on how the law on Prevention of Sexual Harassment can be made stronger.
She is passionately committed to the cause of Inclusion of Gender Inclusivity In corporate India and Women Leadership. She has been working , researching, speaking and writing in this space for more than 25 years. Her contributions in this area among others are:
She is Founder chair-person of juscowomen@work where women officers are groomed for leadership roles through individual and group mentoring.
She is recipient of the Woman of the Year National award 2017 for her extraordinary contribution in the area of changing the mindsets through her work on Prevention of Sexual Harassment, Women Leadership, Second career and Gender sensitization.
She has been a member of the Mentoring Council and the Governing Board of WILL Forum and is recipient of the “WILL Women Choice National award” 2010.
She has been personally mentoring a number of senior women several organizations. She is also encouraging CEO’s of different companies to mentor women and introduce best practices in their companies to create an ecosystem where all employees can work with respect for each other resulting into better productivity through gender sensitization talks.
Sunita was Invited by Sylvia Ann Hewlett, one of the 50 most influential management Gurus in the world, to become Senior Research Advisor and India Director for the “Center for Talent Innovation’s Task Force-“Hidden Brain Drain” New York consisting of more than 80 companies” across the world.
Her story has been published by Harvard Business Press in the book written by Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Ripa Rashid called, “Battle for Female Talent in Emerging Markets.”
Sunita is also part of Industrial Mentorship Program of New Delhi Institute of Management to get the students ready for the corporate world.
She is a Guest faculty at XLRI, Jamshedpur for their Management Development Program on “Diversity Inclusion”. She has addressedglobal MBA students on XLRI’s invitation on the Women in Corporate world- An Indian Perspective.
She has published a Case study for IIM Ahemadabad’sbook called “New Paradigms For Gender Inclusivity: Theory And Best Practices,”on Tata Group’s Second Career Internship program (SCIP).
As a role model for women looking for a second career opportunity,her story as an inspiring woman leader has been put up by Tata Group on the SCIP’s Facebook pagefor making a successful comeback to the professional corporate worldafter a long break of 12 years.
Sunita is also a certified Corporate Director by Institute of Directors
On professional and Academic front, she has served as a Director on the Board of Tata Construction and Projects Ltd and has been a visiting faculty for business laws of IMT Ghaziabad MBA students. She led new initiatives in Tata Steel like founding the Brand Protection Task Force. She was member of CII – national committee of IP Owners for nine years.She has been amember of CII – national committee of Intellectual Property Owners for nine years.