Vietnam leads region for ratio of female business leaders

Vietnamese women hold more leading positions on the business map compared to other countries in the region, including Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.

Women hold 25 percent of CEO or board level positions in Vietnam.

That figure stands at 14 percent in Malaysia, 10 percent in Singapore and only 6 percent in Indonesia, Bloomberg cited September data from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), an American worldwide management consulting firm, as saying.

Up to 81 percent of women in Vietnam want to be promoted within their current companies, compared with 74 percent in Singapore and 59 percent in Malaysia, 

Malaysia has the largest proportion of female respondents who intend to stay in their current roles, said the BCG report, which was built based on a survey of more than 2,000 employees in the four countries.

In June 2017, Deloitte LLP looked into 7,000 companies in 64 economies and found that women account for only 7.8 percent of board directors in Asia. That is a little higher than in Latin and South America, but far below Europe’s 22.6 percent — the highest regional ratio.

Japan, South Korea and Taiwan rank among lowest in the region.

In Vietnam, women make up 17.6 percent of board members. In Malaysia, that ratio stands at 13.7 percent, while it's just 10.2 percent in Singapore, said the UK-incorporated multinational professional services network.

Deloitte also pointed out that in Vietnam, there are no quotas for women board members. The country aims to increase the ratio of leading businesswomen to 35 percent by 2020, it added.