Global Courant 2023-04-25 04:11:06
While only a fraction of companies listed on Africa’s 24 stock exchanges have female CEOs, the companies led by women far outperform financially, according to a new report from Africa.com.
Women-led businesses remain a rarity in Africa, despite growing evidence that more diverse management leads to better outcomes. For the third year in a row, Africa.com analyzed the 2,020 listed companies on Africa’s 24 stock exchanges to compile a definitive list of the continent’s top businesswomen. We also looked at the performance of companies where women occupy the top position as CEO.
The research found that the collective market capitalization of the 34 African companies with female CEOs for the year ended December 31, 2022 was up 2.8%, outperforming many exchanges in Africa and around the world.
“This was a remarkable achievement in the light of conditions worldwide, and especially in Africa,” said Teresa Clark, president of Africa.com, presenting the results by video link.
Share prices of companies led by female CEOs outperformed the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (FTSE/JSE All Share) by 506 basis points, the Nairobi Securities Exchange Index (NSEASI) by 2,712 basis points, the London Stock Exchange (FTSE All Share Index) by 1,202 basis points and the S&P 500 at 1,714 basis points.
Teresa Clark, president of Africa.com, presents the results of the survey. along with profiles of the female leaders and interviews with Vera Songwe and Patricia Lizarraga.
Why do women-led companies perform better?
“In my work with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala at the World Bank, when we started the gender conversation almost 20 years ago, we saw that when you invest in women, you have a much higher return, Vera Songwe, Speaking to Teresa Clark at the presentation, said Vera Songwe, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and former head of the UN Economic Commission for Africa.
“Less than 1.3% of the $69 trillion global wealth is today managed by women, let alone women of color, but those women, on average, deliver a higher ‘ex’ than the men.”
Patricia Lizarraga, founder of Hypatia Capital, also participated in the presentation and commented: “Why do women perform better? Because it’s just harder for women to get to the top. So those who do, by definition have something extra.”
Methodology
To create its third annual definitive list of female CEOs, sponsored by Standard Bank Group, Africa.com screened 2,020 companies listed on Africa’s 24 exchanges for companies with revenues of $100 million or more, or a market capitalization of $100 million. 150 million or more. which resulted in a list of 787 companies. The data comes from Bloomberg.
The public websites of the 787 companies were then reviewed by Africa.com to identify female C-suite executives. The researchers then examined the list of these women to determine who holds the titles of chief executive officer, general manager or president, and conducted an assessment to confirm that these executives have ultimate profit and loss responsibility for the companies. This resulted in the list of 34 companies headed by a woman.
The researchers then used data from Bloomberg to evaluate the change between the stock’s last closing price on January 1, 2022, and December 31, 2022 to determine the companies’ overall performance.
During this process, two additional groups of women were selected to identify divisional heads of African companies and regional heads of international companies. This resulted in Africa.com’s final definitive list of 93 female CEOs. The list includes 40 women from South Africa, 12 from Nigeria and 6 from Egypt, Ghana and Kenya respectively. The full list can be seen on Africa.com.
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