KUALA LUMPUR: Women participation at the top-level management and the board in the Malaysian corporate sector is on the rise in line with the government's call to encourage more women into leadership roles.
Permodalan Nasional Bhd (PNB) chairman Tan Sri Abdul Wahid Omar said women should be given the opportunity to sit on the board of directors as well as hold various key positions within an organisation.
He said PNB also had made a balanced composition of male and female workers at 45:55 ratio. Maybank Group had a 60:40 ratio between male and female, he added.
"Looking at strategic companies under PNB, most of them have complied with the 30 per cent requirement for women being the board of directors in leading subsidiaries of PNB.
"For example, we can see Datuk Mohaiyani Shamsudin as the first woman to be appointed as Maybank chairman and recently, we have also appointed Nik Fazila Nik Mohamed Shihabuddin as Chemical Company of Malaysia Bhd (CCM) group managing director.
"A concern now is the future of our young boys at school or universities as female students make two-thirds of the whole students in Malaysia," he said after the Leadership Summit in Malaysia here yesterday.
In 2018 Budget announcement, the government announced that women should make at least 30 per cent of the board of directors of government-linked companies and government-linked investment companies and statutory bodies, before the end of 2018.
Abdul Wahid said more women are now seen to be excellent the corporate sector as well as in the civil service as they are increasingly occupying the job sector.
Among the women in the corporate sector are chief executive officer of AmInvestment Bank Bhd, Raja Teh Maimunah Raja Abdul Aziz, Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd CEO Datuk Rohana Rozhan, AirAsia Group deputy CEO Aireen Omar and Prasarana Malaysia Bhd president and CEO Masnizam Hisham.