Sukla Mistry became the first female Director to be appointed for Indian Oil Company, India's largest oil refiner and fuel retailer for overseeing the company's refining operations.
Mistry's rise is a big boost for gender diversity in India's energy sector, and it indicates rising opportunities for women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). Mistry was born into a poor family in West Bengal's Sunderban region.
S M Vaidya, the company's chairman said, “A red-letter day for Indian Oil… Ms Sukla is a trendsetter and has broken multiple glass ceilings through her dynamic leadership and focus on excellence,”
Sukla, a metallurgical engineering graduate from Calcutta University's Bengal College of Engineering, gave up her post-graduate studies after being selected by IIT-Kharagpur in 1987 to support her family and siblings' education.
Over the course of her 35-year career at Indian Oil, she rose through the ranks, handling a variety of greenfield and brownfield responsibilities at various refineries. Before being promoted to director, she was in charge of the Digboi refinery in Assam, the country's oldest, and the Barauni unit in Bihar (refineries).
In 2001, she was the first and only woman engineer from India assigned to the ENOC refinery in Dubai as an inspection engineer.
She is credited with increasing wax extraction at the Digboi refinery and meeting deadlines for BS-VI fuels and ethanol-blend gasoline.
