More women are joining companies’ boards, but numbers trail in chairperson positions

The boards of Kenya’s corporate companies have been trying to shed their image as nearly all-male clubs, with more women today fast taking up slits on boardrooms.

But while the figures may be improving, the number of women chairing Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) listed companies is still stumpy when it comes to gender makeup of their boards, according to a report by Kenya Institute of Management (KIM) – which revealed that board chairperson’s positions were heavily skewed towards male gender, with only 4 companies out of 52 public quoted companies having female as chairpersons.

The report, Board Diversity and Inclusion 2017, which took a period of two years to compile, shows an increase of women representation in the 52 listed companies’ boardrooms that were sampled, at 21 per cent this year, up from 18 per cent in 2015 and 12 per cent in 2012. The research had initially targeted 62 NSE-listed firms.