PRESIDENT of the Global Services Association of Jamaica, Anand Biradar is of the belief that, over the next few years, more women will take top jobs in the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry.

His comments come as the world observes International Women’s Day on Wednesday, March 8, a day dedicated to celebrating women and their contributions to society on a whole. The theme this year is ‘DigitALL — innovation and technology for gender equality’.

Currently, Biradar notes, women make up the majority of the workforce in this sector which heavily focuses on technology use, and which has been hailed as the new frontier in terms of job creation in Jamaica.

He explained that currently the sector is made up of about 70 per cent women, with figures showing that there were just under 60,000 people employed in the sector up to last year.

However, despite the majority of the sector having women as employees, he explains that when it comes to the higher executive levels it doesn’t necessarily really reflect what is happening across the sector.

“I would say today about 70 per cent of those employed in the industry are women but when you look at the executive management level and then the senior management level, I would say in senior management it would be closer to 50-50. Executive management, I would say it’s 20 per cent women, 80 per cent men,” he shared with the Jamaica Observer.

However, despite what seems to be a large gap at the top, Biradar is convinced that in the next few years there will be a change in terms of how these roles are proportioned.

“It is heading in the right direction. Give five years, ten years, at the executive management level [and] it will reach 50-50,” he stated. “It is inevitable and definitely a welcome,” he further added about the projections.

“I think we are on that path; we will see a lot of women leaders in the senior roles in this country. It’s bound to happen. Seventy per cent of the workforce is women, and naturally they are the ones who will go up in the chain,” he emphasised.

Women empowerment, he notes, is key to ensuring that more women are able to reach up and take the top jobs that exist in the space — and the sector has been active in this regard.

“The industry is aligned on the subject of women’s empowerment. This is not my personal view. This is the industry’s view, and also I subscribe. I am pro-women empowerment,” he remarked.

“Even in Sagility, where I am employed, there is a focused effort on powering up women in the leadership roles, executive management roles,” he stated as he described his own experiences.

He went on to suggest that the BPO sector is the leader when it comes to women empowerment across the country.

“BPO sector is the leader when it comes to women empowerment compared to other industries because we employ a lot of women. Consequently we invest in women so BPO industry, I wouldn’t be wrong if I say we lead women empowerment very strongly,” he pointed out.