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Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Female Corporate Leaders

A recent article in The Star by Elaine Ang asked "where are our female corporate leaders?"

"According to a PricewaterhouseCoopers' (PwC) March report, The leaking pipeline: Where are our female leaders?, women are lost from the pipeline (workplace) through voluntary termination at a rate two or three times faster than men once they have attained the experienced, mid-career, manager/senior manager level of their careers.

Looking at the statistics on the homefront, it appears that corporate Malaysia generally still favours men over women for top positions. A survey on 50 companies listed on Bursa Malaysia conducted by the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry in 2007 showed that the number of women on boards of directors in Malaysia had gone down by half since 2005, although there has been an encouraging increase of women in senior management positions. In the public sector, the numbers are even more dismal with women comprising less than half of senior civil servant positions.

Opportunities for women to step up and become assets in their organisations would improve as markets open up and demographic changes intensify the need to broaden and change styles and approaches. Nevertheless, the country has its share of successful women leaders."

The article features the following prominent women:
  • Yvonne Chia, Group managing director/chief executive officer - Hong Leong Bank Bhd
  • Yasmin Mahmood, Managing director - Microsoft Malaysia
  • Irene Dorner, Deputy chairman and chief executive officer - HSBC Bank Malaysia Bhd
  • Datuk Bridget Lai, Group chief executive officer - Alliance Bank Malaysia Bhd

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