I’ve always thought there were a huge amount of women in management in Thailand, far more than in any other country I’ve visited, including the United States and the UK. So, it wasn’t surprising to me today when I read that Thailand is the best country in the world for women in business. Why? Because it has the highest percentage of women in senior management (45 percent) than in any other country in the world. Including, now, it’s prime minister. America hasn’t even managed to come close to that, with the majority of Americans still believing a woman doesn’t have the qualifications to be president.
A couple of years ago, I worked for a top international company in Bangkok where 80 percent of their staff was female, and I”m talking high-level executives with degrees from Chulalongkorn and Thammasat universities (the top universities in Thailand), or from universities overseas. Even in the company’s group of partners (the people who owned the company), at least 70 percent were women.
I’ve also lost count of the Thai women I know who own their own businesses, but I do know it’s in the thousands. In fact, I know far more Thai women who own their own businesses than I do Thai men.
Now this is the kind of equality most western countries talk about when it comes to women in business but few, if any, actually deliver.
In Thailand, most companies don’t care if you’re male or female. They just want the best person for the job, no matter who that might be. And, yet, many westerners think Thailand is backward. Boggles the mind.