• More optimistic about revenue growth and digitalisation than global peers while striving to make a positive impact.
• Three-quarters expect their organisation to recover from the crisis within two years.
• Nearly all are confident that the digital economy and e-commerce companies will emerge winners from the current crisis.  
• Three-quarters rank ‘making a positive impact in the world’ as one of the top three factors motivating them.

Female leaders in the UAE believe the crisis may unlock new growth opportunities from advances in technology and changed stakeholder expectations and are motivated to make a positive impact in the world despite pandemic-related challenges.

“Even as governments and organisations swiftly adopted measures to tackle the pandemic, it brought profound personal and professional changes for a disproportionate number of women in the workforce. However, our 2020 survey has found UAE female leaders less pessimistic about Covid-19’s impact,” Marketa Simkova, Partner, Head of People & Change at KPMG Lower Gulf, said:

KPMG findings indicate more than half (55 per cent) of UAE female leaders found their pre-Covid-19 business models enabled the shift to and/or focus on digital. Further highlighting the importance of digitalisation, nearly all of them (95 per cent) are confident that digital economy and e-commerce companies will emerge winners from the current crisis.   

Three out of ten (28 per cent) UAE female leaders believe combating climate change will be of even greater importance in the post-Covid-19 era, according to the KPMG report. Implying a long-term commitment, nine out of ten (89 per cent in UAE, 57 per cent globally) want to lock in sustainability and climate change gains made as a result of the crisis.

Three-quarters (73 per cent) of female leaders in the UAE ranked ‘making a positive impact on the world’ as one of the top three factors motivating them, compared with 57 per cent globally,  followed closely by ‘enabling long-term business success.’

However, 67 per cent of UAE women leaders believe their company has potential to grow in the next three years.

A diversified agenda

Despite clear progress and strong support from the government, nearly all UAE female leaders (95 per cent) indicate there is more to be done to build gender diversity on boards and at management level. Almost two-thirds (61 per cent in UAE, 43 per cent globally) indicated that targets or quotas may be an effective approach.

Regarding discrimination and racism, nearly two thirds (61 per cent) of UAE female leaders (41 per cent globally) believe recent measures taken by their company have had a positive impact; 78 per cent expect recent progress will not be affected by Covid-19.

On the gender pay gap, UAE figures show a significant and positive change compared with last year. In 2020, six out of ten UAE-based female leaders (61 per cent, 46 per cent globally) confirmed their company is transparent regarding equal pay, compared with only 26 per cent in 2019. Despite the pandemic’s socio-economic impact, four out of ten female leaders in the UAE (44 per cent) do not believe Covid-19 will have an impact on their career.

“Our survey shows that for UAE women leaders, making a positive impact in the world is both a personal and commercial imperative. Companies looking to retain and attract talent, will have to compete in this digitalised and dynamic environment, while meeting fundamentally changing values and priorities,” Maryam Zaman, Partner, Head of Corporate Governance at KPMG Lower Gulf, said.