The companies where women aren't sufficiently represented miss out on 50 per cent of the talent pool, Tata Group Chairman Cyrus Mistry said.

In his first message to shareholders as the chairman of Tata Global Beverages Ltd, Mistry said that workplaces that celebrate women reap benefits from better decisions, and thus companies should do much more to retain, develop and grow their women employees.

He pointed out that a number of researches had shown a strong correlation between economic growth and empowerment of women in the workforce.

Speaking on the topic, he asked, "While all of us hunger for faster economic growth, are we giving adequate thought to the subject of appropriate representation of women in the corporate world?"

He added that he had no doubt in his mind that it was important as well as urgent to give sufficient representation to women as women had been and continue to be an integral part of businesses across the world.

44-year-old Mistry further added that several hundred million women would likely join the global workforce in the next ten years.

Tata Global Beverages Ltd is not the first company working towards promoting women employees. Several other companies have already taken the lead by promoting female employees to the top. For instance, Prabha Parameswaran is at the helm of Colgate-Palmolive, while Seema Modi is the managing director of the Indian subsidiary of US food & beverage giant Heinz.