Rolling Stone India to Launch ‘Women in Creativity’ Honors, Featuring 25 Trailblazing Artists, Creators and Entrepreneurs

We are thrilled to announce the launch of our first ‘‘Women In Creativity’ honors this week. Featuring 25 women across the spectrum of music, cinema, OTT, content creation, entrepreneurship and fashion, this Power List marks a celebratory IP with a first-of-its-kind index of exceptional names. 

As a music and pop culture platform, we have a strong history of chronicling and amplifying women in all sectors of creativity through notable features and covers. Our recent covers have featured creatives and leaders such as Jonita Gandhi, Prajakta Koli, Niharika NM, Raja Kumari, Mithila Palkar, Monica Dogra, Anushka Manchanda, Srushti Tawde, Lisa Mishra and more. 

Says Rolling Stone India Executive Editor and Digital Director Nirmika Singh, “The ‘Women in Creativity’ honors are designed for, of and by women. They come at a time when India is experiencing a creative movement across music, entertainment and entrepreneurship with significant contributions from women. This is historic and we have to capture, chronicle and celebrate this moment.”

Backed by a team comprising a majority of women across the verticals of journalism, branding, partnerships, art, business, etc. Rolling Stone India further strengthens its commitment to equality, brick by brick. The 25 women honorees of the Rolling Stone India Women In Creativity power list will be awarded at an event at the publication’s HQ in Mumbai on May 20th, Saturday.

The ‘Women in Creativity’ Power List is significant as women continue to be underrepresented at large. We’re nowhere close to equality and equity. According to USC Annenberg and Spotify’s  ‘Inclusion in the Recording Studio?’ 2022 report, of the 180 artists featured on the Billboard Hot 100 Year-End Chart in 2021, 76.7% were men and only 23.3% were women.

Women have also been marginally nominated for key awards; 85.8% of the 2022 Grammy® nominees in major categories were men and 14.2% were women. India’s ‘O Womaniya’ 2022 report too has noted low presence of women behind the camera with only 10% of head of department (HOD) positions across key divisions such as production design, writing, editing, direction and cinematography, held by women.

Furthermore, in media and entertainment corporate houses, only 10% of senior leadership roles were held by women. The sixth economic census, by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, also highlighted that women comprise 13.76% of the total entrepreneurs in India which is 8.05 million out of the total 58.5 million entrepreneurs.