Women on board: Where does the UAE stand?

The UAE ranks 42nd globally in a list that ranks countries based on the presence of women members in boardrooms.

The economic empowerment of women is taking place as we speak, and they are not limiting themselves to just the average roles.

Women are now progressing to the C-suite and the senior executive level and this change is visible in the UAE and the larger Gulf region.

According to a new survey carried out by MyHiringClub.com, women are now assuming larger roles in the world of business but the survey statics show much work needs to be done.

Within the GCC Kuwait is ranked 35th, Oman 37th, Bahrain 40th, UAE 42nd and Saudi Arabia at 44th slot.

Interestingly, in the Fortune-1,000 boardrooms, there are 141 companies that do not have a single woman member on the board, followed by 312 that have just a token representation of one female board member while 289 companies have two women members on their management boards.

Dishearteningly, there are just 6 companies in the elite Fortune-1,000 club that have five women on their boards, and only two with six women members in the boardroom.

This leaves enough room for improvement.

To shatter the glass ceiling, authorities are taking steps to ensure that more women get the opportunity to make it to the seat of power.

Late last year, The UAE introduced a law that made it mandatory for state-owned firms to have women on their boards.

The move was welcomed and hailed as the right move that will open the gate for women to sit at the top table at major enterprises in the UAE.

As of now, only a minority of the companies have women in their boardrooms. As per the MyHiringClub data only 1.08 per cent of the surveyed companies in the UAE have women in their boardrooms.

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