Only 3 out of 100 Female Executives Among Top 200 Listed Companies in Korea

[Asia Economy Reporter Park So-yeon] Among the registered executives of the top 200 listed companies in Korea, only 3 out of 100 are women.

This is a stark contrast to the top 200 U.S. companies selected by Forbes, where 1 in 4 registered executives is female.

According to a survey conducted by CEO Score, a corporate performance evaluation site, on March 8 in celebration of 'International Women's Day,' as of the end of September last year, among 1,444 registered executives of Korea's top 200 listed companies, only 39 were women, accounting for 2.7% of the total.

In contrast, among 2,410 registered executives of the top 200 U.S. companies, the proportion of female registered executives reached 28.4% (684 people).

Notably, 168 companies, or 84% of Korea's top 200 listed companies, had no female registered executives at all.

Among the remaining 32 companies (16%), only one public enterprise, Korea District Heating Corporation, had three or more female registered executives. Five companies including Samsung Electronics had two, and the other 26 companies had only one female registered executive.

This is significantly lower compared to the U.S., where all top 200 companies have at least one female registered executive.

The number of female CEOs also showed a large gap compared to the U.S.

Among Korea's registered executives, there are three female CEOs: Lee Boo-jin, President of Hotel Shilla; Kim Sun-hee, President of Maeil Dairies; and Han Sung-sook, President of Naver. Excluding the owner-family CEOs Lee and Kim, effectively only Han Sung-sook remains.

In contrast, the U.S. has 12 female CEOs across nine industries. Especially in traditionally male-dominated heavy industries such as automotive, energy, and steel, female CEOs like Mary Barra, Chairwoman of General Motors (GM), and Lynn Good, Chairwoman of Duke Energy, are active.

While the European Union (EU) recommends increasing the proportion of women on boards to 40% by this year and the global trend is to raise the share of female registered executives, Korean companies are failing to keep up with this movement.

In Korea, a revision to the Capital Market Act mandating at least one female registered executive for listed companies with total assets exceeding 2 trillion won passed the National Assembly last month and is set to be implemented in August. However, there are no penalties for companies that violate this rule.

Furthermore, ahead of the shareholder meetings scheduled for this month, among 146 companies that announced shareholder meeting convocations by the 6th, a total of 20 women were nominated as new registered executive candidates.

Among the internal director candidates are Kim Jung-mi, Head of Product Planning at Fila Korea (Fila Holdings), and Cho Hee-sun, President of Hanse Industrial (Hanse Industrial), totaling three women. Among the outside director candidates are 17 women including Han Ae-ra, Professor at Sungkyunkwan University (SK Hynix), Janice Lee, Advisor at Kim & Chang (Samsung C&T), and Emma Lee, Professor at Kyung Hee University (Mirae Asset Daewoo).