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FMT: 97% of businesses include women in senior management

Link to the article: Free Malaysia Today

Human resource director, CFO, and CMO are the top three senior positions held by women in Malaysia, says Grant Thornton Malaysia.

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia showed a 5% improvement, with 97% of its businesses having women in their senior management teams compared to 92% in 2023, said Grant Thornton Malaysia (GT) partner in audit and assurance, Foo Lee Meng. 

She said the country remained consistent with 40% of senior management positions being held by women over the past two years.

“Human resource director, chief financial officer (CFO) and chief marketing officer 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% compared to last year, but there’s a 3% drop in women CEOs or managing directors to 12% in 2024, below the global average of 19%,” she told Bernama.

Foo said that globally in 2024, 33.5% 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% of businesses in Malaysia adapted to the diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) as well as environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategy with 40% of women in senior roles.

 “Hence, a large proportion of businesses in Malaysia adopt a flexible working model, with 15.9%, compared to the global average of 5.1%.

“Additionally, there is a slightly lower percentage of firms being primarily office-based at 43%, compared to the global average of 47%,” she said.

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 its “Women in Business” report are derived from around 5,000 interviews conducted between October and November 2023 across all industrial sectors in 28 countries.

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