Women on Top: Diversity in Gender and Education Profiles of Top Management and Board of Directors of Philippine Publicly Traded Firms

• Main Authors: Unite, Angelo A., Shi, Ailyn A., Sullivan, Michael J.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2015
• Subjects: Gender diversity; Education; CEO; Top management; Board of directors; Philippines; PSE-listed firms; Gender and Sexuality; Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/res_aki/68; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=res_aki
• Institution: De La Salle University

Women have been making headway when it comes to occupying corporate board and senior management positions in companies all over the world, particularly in the Philippines. Stylized facts released by international reports point to the surprising prevalence of women holding leadership positions among Philippine firms. Hence, this descriptive study bridges a gap in the Philippine corporate governance literature by using data on around 250 PSE-listed firms to examine gender diversity composition and trends among CEOs, boards, and top management teams in Philippine publicly traded firms on a five-year interval (i.e. 2003, 2008, 2013) and for the most recent year (i.e. 2014). Additionally, we provide information on the educational profile of CEOs of PSE-listed firms. Our study confirms the existence of a gender gap among governing and managing bodies of Philippine public firms, but observes a gradual improvement in the representation of women in key leadership positions. We also find that most CEOs of PSE-listed firms share a common educational background in terms of undergraduate and graduate degrees received and tertiary schools attended.