In the financial year ending 2023, 66 female positions were reported on audit committees across 148 listed companies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to a report released by Grant Thornton and Heriot-Watt University.
Due to some women holding multiple roles, this figure represents a total of 60 individual women, according to a press release posted on Zawya.
The report, titled Grant Thornton Discovery Series – Women on Audit Committees in the UAE 2024, highlights the role of audit committees within organisations and underscores the importance of women serving on these committees.
This is said to be the first detailed analysis of its kind, providing insights into the representation of women on audit committees across listed companies in the UAE.
It offers data on the number of women serving on audit committees, those who chair these committees and the companies that dominate the auditing sector in the UAE.
Additionally, the report includes profiles of women chairing audit committees, highlighting the progress made in gender diversity within the region.
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By GlobalDataThe analysis covered data from the financial year ending in 2023 for 148 of the 168 listed companies on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) and Dubai Financial Market (DFM).
The 20 companies excluded from the analysis were either not yet listed in 2023 or lacked accessible corporate governance reports.
Following an announcement in September by the UAE Ministry for the Economy, private companies will be required to allocate at least one seat for women on their boards of directors after the current board’s term concludes, as outlined in Ministerial Resolution 137 of 2024.
Out of the 148 companies reviewed, women chair 22 audit committees, with these roles occupied by 19 individual women, as some women hold multiple chair positions.
Grant Thornton CEO Hisham Farouk said: “The results of this report provide great baseline data for the presence of women on audit committees, and with 13.3% of the listed companies in the UAE having a female chair, we are certainly on the right path.”
The report identifies five accounting firms that dominate the auditing landscape for listed companies in the UAE: Ernst & Young, Deloitte & Touche, Grant Thornton, PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG.
