Top 40 Under 40 Women 2012

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How the Top 40 Under 40 Women were picked

One may look at this year’s list of Top 40 Under 40 women and form their own opinions of it. Indeed our readers may even read this and remember women they know who have done better or achieved more in their careers than some who are listed here.

But the Business Daily is bold enough to tell such readers that they may in fact be right. The key thing about our ranking is that it is a product of a combination of a survey commissioned by ourselves and nominations by our readers, including by the candidates themselves.

And in picking this list of 40 women, however, the Business Daily has attempted to make the Top 40 Under 40 project more than a list of the best known, most prominent or most influential women in Kenya today.

We have instead underpinned our choices on the candidates’ ingenuity, performance and durability in the positions they hold.

We have then ascertained each candidate’s age, and considered data on the size of the company, or business (turnover or number of employees), its scope and complexity (i.e whether it is a national/multi-national or cross-sectoral operation), and the competitive landscape of the segment of the economy in which each operates.

Women running or occupying senior positions in companies with a multi-national reach scored higher marks than those in charge of national/local agencies.

In this list are also women professionals such as lawyers, architects, and partners in accounting firms, included purely on the basis of the size (value) of the work they have done.

The Top 40 Under 40 project has also awarded high marks to women who have excelled in professions that have been and remain male dominated such as software engineering, aviation and engineering.

This is because the newspaper believes there should be no gender-based glass ceiling on any career aspiration.

Ochieng Rapuro,

MANAGING EDITOR

Here are highlights of key stories

The ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ sides of leadership, culture: Perception vs reality

According to researchers, there are societal expectations that some people act in a certain way based on their gender.

A new obstacle for professional women: The glass escalator

Stereotypes tend to support notion that men are more assertive and this works to their advantage

How emotional intelligence helps company’s bottom line

Management firms can improve their financial performance by treating their workers humanely.

Kenya's Top 40 under 40 women

In the past 12 months, a lot has happened in the corporate and entrepreneurship landscape, giving the Business Daily yet another rich mix of new and old faces to compile the annual list of Kenya’s women to watch.

Subscribe to the Business Daily e-newspaper to download the 2012 Top 40 Under 40 Women here