Although women in Kenya have over the years made remarkable progress in joining the workplace, they still have a long way to rise to the peak of the corporate ladder, with less than a third of them occupying the coveted corner office, a new report has revealed.
The report by McKinsey, a US-based management consultancy, revealed that while women in Kenya hold 41 out of 100 entry-level positions in both public and private executive level, this drops to 27 in 100 at the executive level, or C-suite.
This disparity is sharper in the private sector where women’s representation suffers from the “broken rung” effect much earlier, dropping to 34 percent in managerial roles against 41 percent at the entry level.
In the public sector, women’s representation holds steady at 46 percent in both entry-level and managerial roles.
The tapering off continues into the Vice President and Senior Vice President levels—pointing to salient barriers that have made it difficult for women to get promoted higher the ranks of the corporate structure.
The tapering off women representation in employment “is a reflection of the continued complexity of circumstance that spans structure, culture and socio-economic dynamics in the workplace and job families,” says Japheth Achola, the Human Resource Director at KCB Group.
Rita Kaveshe, the chief executive officer of Isuzu Motors East Africa Limited, reckons that the more women move up the ladder, the more they need support from the organisation.
However, she says that most organisations have what she describes as “structural efficiency.”
“You say you want to support women go up the ladder, but you do not create a right environment for them to grow,” she explained, noting that the support can be in the form of coaching or just psychometric.
Women in the Workplace 2025, offers a damning a prognosis of how women are confronted with a broken rung on their way up to top of the corporate ladder.
The report compared the representation of women in different positions in three sectors—legal, finance and healthcare.
Women started strong holding in healthcare and legal sectors, constituting 55 percent and 59 percent of the entry-level positions. They were 50 percent at the entry level in finance.
It is only in the legal sector where women outperformed men, and would go on to surpass their male counterparts with their representation at the C-suite, rising to 55 percent from 48 percent at the Senior Vice President level.
In healthcare, there were 39 women for every 100 sitting at the corner office, and 26 percent in the financial sector.
At the board level, however, the women representation in the legal sector, just as in other sectors, drops sharply to 33 percent, an indicator of how they have been excluded from the ultimate decision-making process of the country’s economy at the firm level.
Board representation is at 27 percent in the financial sector and 32 percent in healthcare.
Catherine Musakali is the founder of the Women on Boards Network, which promotes gender diversity in corporate governance. She has seen first-hand how biases stall women’s leadership progress. She reckons that unlike men, women are forced to juggle between their careers and home-making roles.
“Finding a fine balance is not easy for some of us,” notes Ms Musakali.
Often, women are compelled to sacrifice their dreams to meet the expectations that come with caring for their households. The choice is rarely as stark for men.
Ms Kaveshe says some women, have been forced to give up promotions, especially if that means abandoning their family for an opportunity out of the country.
Andia Chakava, the investment director at Graca Machel Trust and a global leader in gender lens investing, notes the need for employees to undergo training on identifying unconscious biases.
“This will give colleagues the self-awareness to understand situations that may lead them to underappreciate women’s leadership styles, because they may differ from the more masculine forms we are traditionally used to. This tends to create the inaccurate perception that women may be less competent,” says Ms Chakava, who is among the first female fund managers in Africa.
More women have recently been joining the top earners club, with the data from the national statistician showing that in 2023 new female employees earning over Sh100,000 a month outnumbered male workers in the country’s formal sector for the first time.
The data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) shows that about 92 percent or 14,268 of the new super earners were women, helping narrow the gender pay gap at the top level, amid push for salary parity at the workplace.
Yet, the pay gap between the two genders remains yawning.
While there are nearly the same number of women and men in entry-level, low-paying jobs, a pay gap begins to emerge higher up the ladder.
In the Sh50,000 to Sh99,999 pay range, men outnumber women by 42.9 percent. This disparity holds among those earning more than Sh100,000, with men outnumbering women at this salary scale by 43.5 percent.
In the public sector, where there has been some form of support to the women, the progression to the top, at least to the mid-level management, has been impressive. Not in the private sector.
“The private sector is highly performance-driven. They notice when you're not there. In the public sector, they can almost tolerate you going away and coming back,” says Ms Musakali, pointing to caregiving roles that disproportionately fall on women.
The evidence continues to show it is difficult for women to break through the glass ceiling in corporate leadership. Other challenges women face include the so-called unconscious biases. Unconscious biases are the attitudes, stereotypes or assumptions we hold without even realising it. They influence how we think and act toward other people, and play a big role in stalling women’s progress at work.
Such biases create patterns that entrench exclusion, with even women beginning to unconsciously believe that men should be at the top. This helps perpetuate the status quo. It is a vicious cycle.
“You begin to see women suffer from the impostor syndrome,” explains Ms Musakali, who notes that this is a massive barrier to women’s senior leadership aspirations.
Having a workplace culture that support women’s dual roles at home and at work, would help address some of the structural inefficiencies.
“This may mean knowing that women might be limited in mornings due to school runs or may need to leave early to accompany ageing parents to a doctor’s appointment.”
Such small shifts can have a significant impact on retaining women in the workplace, enhancing the leadership talent pipeline.
Ms Musakali says when a woman takes four months of maternity leave, her performance should not be compared to that of a man who has not needed to be away for that long.
“How do we level the field so that we compare an apple for an apple?” she asks.
McKinsey notes that organisations can take early steps to address women’s underrepresentation through policies that deliberately ensure gender diversity in leadership. To have real impact, though, these policies must move beyond paper to practice.
There is hope, though. KCB Group C-suite has a 33 percent C-Suite Women Representation and a 55 percent Group Board Women representation, says Mr Achola.
"The public and private sector leaders must continue to push the agendas and initiatives that drive the principles and conditions of being just, fair and impartial in workplace practice at all levels, in a demonstrable manner, consequently enabling intentional choice of career progression by both female and male employees," adds Mr Achola.
WAN-IFRA Women in News (WIN), a global organisation that advances gender equality and inclusion in the media, released a study earlier this year on who sets the news agenda.
The report found that women hold just one in four editorial and business leadership roles across Africa’s media industry.
In Kenya, however, WIN found that women’s representation in business leadership increased dramatically from 0 percent in 2022 to 36 percent in 2024.
This shift was the result of efforts by the media organisations to improve the recruitment process and prioritise gender-balanced candidate pools. This substantially increased women’s access to leadership roles with positive effects.
WIN runs a mentorship programme that addresses the attrition in the middle, that leads to a tapering off of women candidates who can occupy top seats in the media.
“Our engagement with media partners is designed to expand the pipeline of women leaders in the sector. This is a vital step toward reshaping the industry's power dynamics. By equipping women with the skills, networks and tools to lead, we’re addressing the barriers that have kept leadership tables disproportionately male,” says WIN Executive Director Melanie Walker.
At the macro-economic level, growing the economy would go a long way in creating opportunities for women.
“I have 30 women who are CEO material, but I don’t have enough opportunities because the business is not growing as fast,” said Ms Kaveshe.
But even more critical for Ms Kaveshe, a shining light in a male dominated industry, is for the women to drop their fear and just “plug in,” “network” and be “aggressive.”
