Vietnam ranks the second highest of women in leadership in Asia: Grant Thornton

The report showed the top four roles of Vietnamese women in business are chief finance officer (36 per cent), chief executive officer or managing director (30 per cent), human resources director and chief marketing officer (25 per cent respectively).

Nguyen Thi Vinh Ha, national head of advisory services and deputy general director of Grant Thornton Vietnam said that: “Vietnam ranked the second highest of women in leadership is not strange. In our country, women in business always play significant parts”.

However, there are barriers senior female leaders in Vietnam have to face such as lack of access to developmental work opportunities, lack of access to networking opportunities, caring responsibilities outside of work and finding the time alongside core job responsibilities.

These are the challenges that they say has prevented them from acquiring the skills and attributes to be successful in their roles, the report showed.

Women now hold 29 per cent of senior leadership positions globally. While this is only up 10 per cent over the past 15 years of research, half this increase (5 per cent) has been achieved in the last 12 months alone.

In ASEAN, the proportion of women in senior leadership is higher than others over the world. The proportion of businesses with at least one woman in senior management in the region was 94 per cent and the proportion of senior roles held by women is 28 per cent.

While the number of women in senior leadership is increasing, gender parity at the head of the table is still a significant way off. When it comes to the role of CEO or managing director, only 15 per cent of businesses globally have a woman leading the business.

Kenneth Atkinson, executive chairman of Grant Thornton Vietnam emphasized that “If we want to continue seeing female representation trend upwards in senior positions, more deliberate action needs to be taken and leaders will play a critical role”.