India, Sept. 20 -- From boardroom access to grassroots participation, her tenure has opened fresh pathways for women seeking influence, visibility and leadership.

The FKCCI building on Kempe Gowda Road is familiar to me from my early stint as a reporter when I covered several conferences there. Time was when every important person from New Delhi would make a pitstop there to speak about matters of economic and commercial importance. During the past year, it regained much of the bustle, and the building has drawn the attention of passersby who would otherwise zoom or crawl past traffic in this busy commercial area. Larger-than-life images have recounted the newsworthy events on the busy calendar of its president. And Uma Reddy's tenure as...