Kenya beats US, Canada in number of women chairing boards

• There is a positive correlation between share price performance and women representation in boardroom
• 61 percent of female directors are in 45-59 years bracket compared with 50 percent male directors in same age bracket
• At current growth rates, gender parity in Kenya’s corporate boardroom representation could be achieved in 10-12 years

NAIROBI, KENYA: Kenya has more women chairing boards of various companies compared to other countries across the Globe, a new research shows.

The report by Kenya Institute of Management on Board Diversity and Inclusion puts Kenya’s representation at 7.7 percent ahead of Eastern and Western Europe, US and Canada, Asia, Australasia, Asia, Middle-East and Africa.

The Kenyan trend at roughly 8 percent against other nations has not changed in the last six years. Notably, Kenya beats mature markets such as US and Canada where only 4.2 percent of women chair board of various companies.

Women representation in Middle East and Africa, Western and Eastern Europe stands at 7.5 percent, 5.0 percent and 4.3 percent respectively

“While it may seem Kenya is leading the pack globally in women presence in board chair positions, it is far from attaining gender parity in the same area. In fact the situation has not improved in the last five years since 2012,” noted the report.

“We also made attempts to gather data on senior management of the listed companies especially on gender and age but the response rate were again low and efforts in getting this data from secondary sources only yielded from 44 companies out of the targeted 62 representing a 71 percent representation.”

Like in the boardroom, women representation in senior management was a quarter meaning one woman for every three men in the senior management teams.

As women continues to have representation in key areas of organisations, the Kenya Institute of Management survey discovers that the share price of Nairobi Securities Exchange listed companies has over the years risen as women representation in board rose.

With the exception of 2016 when share price plummeted mostly attributed to harsh operating environment, there is a positive correlation between share price performance and women representation in boardroom.