KUALA LUMPUR, March 8 — Malaysia showed positive growth, with 97 per cent of its businesses having women in their senior management teams currently compared to 92 per cent in 2023, said Grant Thornton Malaysia (GT) partner in audit and assurance, Foo Lee Meng.
She said the country remained consistent with 40 per cent of senior management positions being held by women over the past two years.
“From this data we gather, human resource (HR) director, chief financial officer (CFO) and chief marketing officer (CMO) are the top three senior positions held by women in Malaysia.
“We are seeing a record high level of women CFOs, an increase of 14 per cent compare to last year, but there’s a 3 per cent drop in women chief executive officer (CEO) or managing director to 12 per cent in 2024, below the global average of 19 per cent,” she told Bernama.
Foo said that globally in 2024, 33.5 per cent of senior management positions are held by women with an increase of just 1.1 percentage points since 2023.
She said despite the progress in percentage points, the growth remains slow for women’s involvement in senior roles.
“Since the pandemic, there has been progress but it still remains slow. Without greater focus on the issue, women’s parity in senior management won’t be reached until 2053 at the current rate,” she said.
Meanwhile, she said 46 per cent of businesses in Malaysia adapted the diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) as well as environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategy with 40 per cent of women in senior roles.
Hence, a large propotion of businesses in Malaysia adopt a flexible working model with 15.9 per cent compared to the global average 5.1 per cent, coupled with a slightly lower percentage of firms being primarily office-based at 43 per cent compared to the global average 47 per cent.
Earlier, Foo said GT conducted surveys on more than 5,000 senior executives in listed and privately held companies all over the world.
The findings in this Women in Business report are drawn from around 5,000 interviews conducted between October and November 2023 from all industrial sectors in 28 countries.
— Bernama
