This archive report was first published on 14 November 2019.
Published on November 14, 2019, a report by Danish research firm Equileap in partnership with New Faces New Voices and the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) found that none of the 60 leading companies assessed had achieved gender balance in the board, executive, senior management, and workforce levels.
While seven companies, representing 12 per cent, have a female CEO, the report faulted the companies for hiding gender pay gap information. The report says 62 per cent of the companies (37) do not have a composition of the gender of their workforce, and no company published information on pay differences between males and females or a strategy to deal with the pay gap.
Kenya ranked higher than the USA, Japan, and Hong Kong in terms of gender equality score, with 26 per cent. However, the report noted that there was “limited transparency” on the pay gap information despite Kenya edging out some more advanced countries.
Equileap CEO Diana van Maasdijk said, “The report shows that Kenyan listed companies are outperforming their global counterparts in certain areas, with more female CEOs than the FTSE 100 for instance. However, this stronger female leadership and commitment to gender equality still needs to be accompanied by greater transparency in areas such as the gender pay gap, which currently goes undisclosed in Kenya.”
NSE Chief Geoffrey Odundo emphasized the importance of ensuring gender equality in attracting strategic investors in local listed firms, stating, “Addressing gender equality will unlock trillions of dollars of currently unrealised economic value across the globe.”
Standard Chartered topped the list with a gender equality score of 63 per cent, followed by WPP Scangroup and Safaricom, and Barclays Bank of Kenya respectively. The four companies are the only listed firms that offer employees flexibility in terms of both hours and location.
