Women in leadership - where do Thai women stand?

Female Thai business leaders believe that achieving gender equality is not just about setting targets for women’s presence in leadership, but that structural and cultural barriers against women need to be dismantled.

“Women constitute only 20% of board membership in Thailand. When you don't have appropriate diversity at the board or policy level, a lot of alternative policies don't trickle down, because they've got just nobody at the head,” according to Shannon Kalayanamitr, a veteran business and tech entrepreneur.

Women in leadership – The statistics

The current global average for women in senior management roles is 34%, according to the‘Women in Business 2025’ report. The Asia-Pacific region is lagging, at 32.9%, but Thailand stood out, because Thai women hold 43.1% of senior management roles, the highest in the region.

While Thailand continues to champion the presence of women in leadership roles, gender bias remains.

Shannon noticed that the qualities required of men and women to become leaders remain different, a clear reflection of the underlying gender roles. One example is how male leaders are expected to be innovative, a good communicator and that raising his voice is still acceptable, unlike women, who are still expected to be “emotionally strong”.

“These are just cognitive biases, where we have to be a little bit more cognisant of what we really think a true leader should be,” Shannon explains.

“I think it's reflected in many types of roles - the board, the executive level or even what you think of your HR or marketing person. It doesn't necessarily have to be a woman. It could be a man as well. I'm not advocating for just women, women and women, but more equality.”

Bias or not?

Thai women’s upbringings are undeniably part of the glass ceiling.

Supanee Anuwongworavet, a founder of CrestHaus, a mentorship community for female leaders, feels that Thai culture has cultivated different mind-sets for men and women growing up, where boys have the freedom to take risks, while girls are often taught to play it safe.

This is reflected in their career paths, where boys are be encouraged to pursue careers in engineering, computer science and technology, while girls are told to take “less risky” paths, such as accounting.

“When a girl grows up in Thai culture, we will say, okay, be nice, don’t do so many exciting things compared to men. Then a boy would be told that you can go hang out with friends, you can have as many as you want” Supanee explains.

On the other hand, Mookda Pairatchavet, CEO of beverage conglomerate Osotspa, who has been in business leadership for over 40 years, has noticed significant changes.

Mookda has witnessed the increasing ratio of female executives versus male, especially in multinational companies in Thailand, unlike 20 years ago, when over 80% of top management were male. Despite the gender imbalance, she has never thought of it as a barrier.

“If you don’t think this is a barrier, then it won’t be,” Mookda explains. “I think it is most important to give people equal respect, no barriers or boundaries against women or men, or where you come from. Society nowadays is much more inclusive, especially in Thailand, where people have freedoms and opportunities.”

Meanwhile, Maneerat Anulomsombut, an independent board director at insurance company Muang Thai Life, feels that women’s competence should be considered, rather than judging them based on their gender or age.

She also believes that creating an empowering work culture should start with top management, including more mentorship and coaching for female leaders.

“If the top management has this open mind-set, the structural shifts will follow and the work culture will strengthen, because it allows their employees who are truly capable to grow,” says Maneerat.

Can tech help close the gap?

Some believe, however, that the emergence of AI and other new technologies should help in closing the gender gap in the workforce and increase opportunities for women at work.

While AI has improved productivity, replacing redundant tasks in admin, finance, accounting and legal services, women in the workforce are undeniably the most affected by the change.

“So, with the arrival of AI, it has had an impact on productivity gain and it does affect women,” Supanee explains. “I believe that the leaders need to be aware of how are they going to balance taking AI into the business and the human skills they have in their organisation, how fast that they need to upskill or reskill the people in that organisation, just to ensure that, when we build the technology, we don’t just build it, because humans still need to develop with the technology.”

While AI can increase productivity, Oranuch Lerdsuwankij, of Techsauce, believes that it can reinforce gender bias. This is why more female leaders are needed in tech and AI.

“I think the most important aspect is that the people who train [AI] shouldn't build the bias into it. It's like garbage in, garbage out. If we train AI with a bias, its results will be biased. We have seen a lot of the results from generative AI which reinforce the gender bias. So, we would like to give this kind of message to tech providers. How can we ensure that all of the results that come from AI models are not biased results?” says Oranuch.

Meanwhile, Piyada Tansawai, Data and AI Portfolio Lead at IBM Thailand has a different perspective, adding that catching up with AI, which is evolving quickly, is already challenging for many.

“I think companies should empower people to increase their AI literacy… Personally, I don’t think it emphasises gender inequality that much, because anyone can access these tools and catch up with it. I think it opens more learning opportunities rather than increasing barriers for women.”

Don’t just set quotas, inspire them

While progress towards gender equality is recognised in Thailand, there is still a lot more to be done. These were among the topics discussed at the recent EmpowerHer Asia Forum 2026, which took place in Bangkok earlier this month.

Shannon believes that gender equality is not about how many women are CEOs. Rather, it is to empower female leaders and give them the authority to make decisions in the boardroom.

“We live in Thailand, we do have the highest number of female CEOs (in the region). It's not just a number that you hit, it’s also whether they are really making important decisions. Are they being allowed to deploy their own financial literacy and are they trying to build a foundation for longer term growth, stability and confidence?” Shannon reflects.

Supanee also feels that companies should not only focus on the percentage of women needed in leadership, but on building inclusiveness and giving opportunities equally to all genders.

“If women may not yet be stepping up, then they have to be inspired. You have got to be supporting and helping her. I think that's the momentum that would help a lot for the leadership to grow in the company and I hope that, soon, we will see a lot of women in leadership roles,” Supanee concluded.