“We saw a significant rise of female chief executive officers and managing directors in Malaysia at 38% (up 28 percentage points (pp) from 2021). said partner for technical and training at Grant Thornton Malaysia PLT, Silvia Tan.
PETALING JAYA: There is an upward trend in the number of women in senior management in Malaysia, according to Grant Thornton Research in its Women in Business survey that covered 5,000 businesses across 29 economies.
A linear plotted growth over the recent years was reported by the survey with the number of women in senior management in Malaysia rising from 25% in 2018 to 40% in 2022.
“We saw a significant rise of female chief executive officers and managing directors in Malaysia at 38% (up 28 percentage points (pp) from 2021).
“There is also an increase of women chief operating officers at 37% (up 18pp from 2021) and chief information officers at 27% (up 7pp from 2021),” said the partner for technical and training at Grant Thornton Malaysia PLT, Silvia Tan.
On a global scale, 32% of positions in senior management teams are occupied by women while the figure is 37% in the Asean region.
The survey also found as much as 76% of businesses indicated they are working towards creating a more inclusive environment for female talents by implementing new working practices.
“About 96% of Malaysian businesses are taking action on engagement and inclusion. These actions include instilling long-term virtual and flexible working (44%), promoting work/life balance and/or flexibility for employees (41%) and creating an environment where all colleagues can ‘speak up’ with ideas, issues and questions (40%),” said Thornton.
Grant Thornton Malaysia said 43% of senior positions at the company are held by women, attributing its to the inclusive work culture it has in place that supports the progression of women into senior leadership roles.
