Thailand watches the rise of women executives

By William Barnes

Published: January 11 2007 02:00 | Last updated: January 11 2007 02:00

When Nima Chandler, who runs a well-known map and greetings card business in Bangkok, mooted the idea of employing another man, her almost entirely female staff counseled strongly against it.

"There was horror. 'Oh, no, no, no. Women are much more efficient and they work harder.' The women here didn't think it was a good idea at all," says Ms Chandler, managing director of Nancy Chandler Graphics.

In a country where females are traditionally second class citizens - "the hind legs of the elephant" - they appear to be making remarkable strides in white-collar work.

The anecdotal evidence is that more businesses are finding, by accident or design, that they end up employing mostly women as managers. Or at least employ a lot more women than they did a decade ago.

The reason for the rise of the white-collar female may partly be explained by the slow equalisation of the genders at work, with women breaking through the glass ceiling.

Few people, however, think it is as simple as that. For in many cases employers seem to find women not merely equal, but better than their male rivals.

"That is definitely the case here. We have no particular hiring policy, but we find that the best qualified, most motivated applicants are almost invariably women," says Peter Kopitz, vice president, corporate finance, at ACL Securities.

"There are two men and 15 women in my office. The two departments next door are the same: both with a dozen women and a couple of guys," he noted. "We do a lot of project work with other brokers and consultants and a lot of the people I have to deal with are women. And they are quite capable of dealing with any strutting male," he adds.

There are some "soft-skill" industries such as human resources in Thailand that are, by convention, dominated by women, but Mr Kopitz's field is hard finance, traditionally a male bastion.

The foreign country head of a prominent Scandinavian engineering company says: "Female managers can be very tough. They come across as very polite and amenable and they're extraordinarily well groomed, but they can be like granite in negotiations."

He adds: "The impression I get is that women are often more focused than the men. They may have more to prove. Perhaps they feel they have to fight harder."

So are Thai women - the sex that, all things being equal, still rides in the back of the open pick-up, not in the air conditioned cab - engaged in a continual war of the sexes?

Few people seem taken with this idea. Rather they point to the weaknesses of Thai males who often appear - by comparison - more carefree and inclined to complacency.

Some anthropologists have suggested that ingrained male "irresponsibility", and its antithesis female responsibility for the Thai household, might have been socially useful traits when men had to be physically and emotionally available to leave for long periods to work or fight for the king.

Few Thai executives spend long periods fighting on distant borders or digging ditches these days (and ethnic Chinese families would anyway be subject to different mores), but Anthony Ainsworth, director of headhunters Richard Glynn, says he was the only man in his office simply because women worked harder.

"It's a cultural thing. Boys are spoilt to the Nth degree by their mothers and never quite get over it. Men here are a bit like lions - once they decide they've completed the kill, the crucial task, they tend to kick back and relax. The females don't, they keep working," says Sir Anthony.

The perception of Thailand as a male-dominated society misses the truth that women often pull the strings, he argues.

Thaksin Shinawatra might have been the most powerful civilian prime minister in Thai history until he was ousted by the military last year, but he is widely thought to have been dominated by his retiring wife Pojaman.

In a sense, then, the rise of the female executive may be simply revealing an influence previously wielded indirectly. Thitiporn Onsawarng, a recruitment executive with headhunters Pacific 2000, guesses that women are over represented only in some parts of the financial and service sectors. (Pacific 2000 is doing its bit, staffed by 16 women and one foreign owner.)

"Women tend to be better team players than men who can have difficult relationships with their superiors, but men still dominate in engineering work, in the strategic thinking work," she says.

Yet Ms Thitiporn also observes that after the devastating 1997 crash it often seemed as if women were cleaning up the mess made by profligate men.

"Women have been our most active central bankers and government auditors. When a new bank president is announced no one is surprised now when it is a woman," she says.

Ms Thitiporn estimates that about a quarter of the jobs in top management are held by women and about 40 per cent of middle managers are female. Because women are good team players they are often a majority in the managements of smaller firms, especially foreign-owned ones, she adds. The training and management consultant Kriengsak Niratpattanasai, a former banker, says many Thai females made formidable executives after shunning the traditional ties of family.

"Lots of them seem to be single, which leaves them free to get a really good education and then follow a good career. The traditional woman simply got married and devoted herself to her family."

Mr Kriengsak adds: "In the past, Thai banks used to have an informal policy of preferring men because they assumed that all women would eventually get married and lose interest in a career. No one thinks that now."

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

Making negative comments about men isn't a very good way to promote women in the workplace imo.

Indeed, this seems more like some man's ideas of denigrating the local men instead of actually promoting the skills of the local women. By saying, "oh the men are terrible, it makes the women look good by comparison" doesn't say much for either. Nor does it say much for the author either

Some anthropologists have suggested that ingrained male "irresponsibility", and its antithesis female responsibility for the Thai household, might have been socially useful traits when men had to be physically and emotionally available to leave for long periods to work or fight for the king.

Few Thai executives spend long periods fighting on distant borders or digging ditches these days (and ethnic Chinese families would anyway be subject to different mores), but Anthony Ainsworth, director of headhunters Richard Glynn, says he was the only man in his office simply because women worked harder.

"It's a cultural thing. Boys are spoilt to the Nth degree by their mothers and never quite get over it. Men here are a bit like lions - once they decide they've completed the kill, the crucial task, they tend to kick back and relax. The females don't, they keep working," says Sir Anthony.

The perception of Thailand as a male-dominated society misses the truth that women often pull the strings, he argues.

I must agree here - every (Thailand-based) office that I have worked in has been dominated by hard-working Thai female executives. Not a Thai male manager in sight!

Some anthropologists have suggested that ingrained male "irresponsibility", and its antithesis female responsibility for the Thai household, might have been socially useful traits when men had to be physically and emotionally available to leave for long periods to work or fight for the king.

Few Thai executives spend long periods fighting on distant borders or digging ditches these days (and ethnic Chinese families would anyway be subject to different mores), but Anthony Ainsworth, director of headhunters Richard Glynn, says he was the only man in his office simply because women worked harder.

"It's a cultural thing. Boys are spoilt to the Nth degree by their mothers and never quite get over it. Men here are a bit like lions - once they decide they've completed the kill, the crucial task, they tend to kick back and relax. The females don't, they keep working," says Sir Anthony.

The perception of Thailand as a male-dominated society misses the truth that women often pull the strings, he argues.

I must agree here - every (Thailand-based) office that I have worked in has been dominated by hard-working Thai female executives. Not a Thai male manager in sight!

And you say Men are Bigots !!

It's only bigotry if it isn't true.