Women in Business: Why Thailand Is a Success Story in Women Leadership

Key Takeaways from Women Leading Businesses in Thailand

Last week, I was invited to attend an event organised by the Embassy of the Netherlands – Women in Business: Why Thailand is a success story in women leadership.

This was a blended in person / virtual event, and the takeaways were so great, I wanted to share them with you all.

Following the oficial opening and introduction by Sigrid Kaag, Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation of the Netherlands, and Peter Potman, Deputy Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, we received a detailed account as to what makes Thailand the country with the highest number of women leaders.

Stressing the importance of continuing to address the untapped potential in women, aided by all research concluding that companies with more women leaders have higher revenues and better performance, the speakers and panel aimed to discover what makes Thailand so successful in leading the way of female leadership, and how to create a more gender balanced board all over.

Melea Cruz, Partner at Grant Thornton Thailand presented their 2020 Women in Business report, sharing some insightful facts and figures.

The report reveals that Thailand has a greater percentage of women in senior leadership positions than both the Asia-Pacific region and the global average. In Thailand’s mid-market companies, women hold 32% of senior leadership positions, with the global average of 27% as well as the APAC average of 26%.

Thailand is also performing comparatively well when it comes to having women in the very highest positions of power: 24% of CEOs / Managing Directors in Thailand are women, compared to 20% worldwide and only 13% in Asia-Pacific.

Although we are heading in the right direction, these numbers are nowhere near as high we they need to be. Beyond simple questions of fairness, a greater diversity of people in business and government means more perspectives to consider – and ultimately better strategic decision-making and better execution.

The target across the world is a more gender balanced board, where women need to take a minimum of 30% of board representation. Only then can you truly reap the benefits of gender diversity, and more ideas and perspectives leading to better decision making. 

Ms Cruz said that more and more businesses in Thailand are looking to build on this trend towards equality, actively working to improve their gender balance, with initiatives such as enabling flexible working, creating an inclusive culture, and ensure equal access to developmental opportunities.  

It is worth noting also that the Thai government is lagging behind the private sector on this issue, and that equal participation is a fundamental step towards inclusive governance and an equitable society – the best way to bring about public policies that genuinely address the needs of all citizens. 

Melea Cruz also took some time to discuss the effect of Covid-19 in women in leadership. She explained that working women are being impacted in profound ways, facing tremendous challenges, and commonly taking on extra duties at home, while continuing to excel in their careers. The negative impact was overall far greater than that of their male counterparts. 

Women have had to work from home, do house chores, take care of their kids, support them through online learning, needing to adopt a 24/7 connectivity strategy to cope with the additional demands, leading in many cases to exhaustion and burnout. 

During the event, we were also treated to a panel of highly successful women, on a highly anticipated topic: Key success factors for women leadership in the business sector.

The panelists, from left to right:

• Vira-Anong Chiranakhorn Phutrakul, Managing Director and Head of Consumer Banking, Citibank Thailand
• Dr. Sutapa Amornvivat, CEO SCB Abacus Co. Ltd
• Pranapda Phornprapha, Director Siam Motors Group

Someof the highlights and recommendations brought forward by the panelists were as follows:

• Companies need to help more women reach more senior roles, starting by amending their policies to be more diversity inclusive.
• Women need to take overseas assignments in order to widen their perspectives, get out of their comfort zone and challenge themselves to succeed.  
• Whatever your role, you must do it with passion. You need to nurture a mindset that no matter the job you do, you are making a difference.
• Apply the rule of 33 – to elevate your level of success, spend your time wisely, with this rule: 33% of your time must be spent with your team and subordinates, 33% with your peers, and the remainder 33% with people above you, whether a boss, mentor or expert.
• Apply curiosity to everything you do and become a life long learner. Close your performance gaps, upgrade your digital skills, and anything else that will help you get closer to your goal. Seek your ambitions and find ways to balance it all out.
• Make your team your motivation. We need to create a culture of inclusion, and become active supporters of flexible working hours, access to childcare, options to work from home, etc. Men must also be accommodated for outside of work so they can assist with the house, kids, parents, etc. 
• Don’t try to be one of the boys. Don’t lose your femenine side – it’s one of your biggest strengths. Some female traits may be frowned upon (i.e. men=assertive / women= bossy), don’t fall into any stereotypes. 
• Be who you are, and develop an authentic leadership style. Harness and leverage your more femenine traits, such as empathy, nurture & develop others, etc.
• Inspire your team and build their talents. They will help you succeed. 
• One of the biggest barriers of entry for women is their own mindset. Women must have clear goals, and a plan to get them done. Women must adapt and have a willingness to change. They must also create shared goals and responsibilities with support networks. They must ask for help, starting with their circle of influence (family, friends, immediate work group, etc). Women need to become more strategically familiar, keep promoting the agenda more, and exert influence as much as possible. Become more visible, your voice matters. 
• To inspire change, start from within first, then your family and friends. Encourage your daughters to do anything they want, regardless of gender bias. Also find role models (both male and female, formal and informal).
• Leadership is non-gender. There are no specific male – female traits that make a great leader. However, it is worth noting that out of the 19 key leadership traits of great leaders, women are naturally good at 17 out of 19. 🙂 
• Find sponsors – whether men who belief in your ability to climb up the ladder or great female mentors and sponsors. Make yourself visible and create opportunities for people to take a chance of you, and when you get there, do the same for other women. 
• Creating a more diverse top tier is not a men/women issue. We are all in this together. We must continue to educate everyone and continue to make a business case in favour of gender diversity. 

A big thank you to the Embassy of Netherlands for inviting me to attend such an insightful, inspiring and empowering event. My biggest takeaway?

Having worked as a female senior leader myself, founded my own business and actively coaching, mentoring and training women in business worldwide, this event left a much greater impact in me than previous ones. The highly successful women who presented their views and opinions on the topic helped all of us bridge the gap between the women who aspire to take on the big roles, and the women who are already doing it, normalising the somehow distorted idea we make in our heads.

These were real women, with real lives and real struggles, just like the rest of us. Life is what you make of it, and they all showed real strength and determination in wanting to work on making it all work – these were not women who dedicated their lives to their career in isolation. These were mothers, daughters and bossess who care greatly about leaving this world a little bit better than they found it, and in doing so, I hope they inspire many more women to follow suit, because it is certainly accessible to us all.

To your succes,

Isabel