Just 5% of top cloud CEOs are women

On International Women’s Day yesterday, cloud service directory Cloudscene announced that just 5% of CEOs of the top 100 cloud service providers are women.

Data from Cloudscene’s directory of colocation data centres, cloud service providers and network fabrics show that there are just five female CEOs in the top 100 providers.

These are: Chua Sock Koong, group CEO of Optus’s Singapore-based parent company Singtel; Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer; Tele2 CEO Allison Kirkby; Fibernet Direct CEO Carmen Perez; and The Quilt CEO Jen Leasure.

Among these five companies, three also have an equal or majority representation of women in the boardroom.

Among the five CEOs, four obtained the role without a formal tech qualification, with only Mayer having a degree in computer science. Two held the role of CFO prior to being promoted to CEO.

“It would be naive to not acknowledge the importance of more women holding leadership positions in the tech sector globally,” commented Cloudscene founder Bevan Slattery, who is also founder or co-founder of a number of notable Australian tech companies including Megaport, NEXTDC, PIPE Networks and SubPartners.

“Whether it’s a gender, racial or age diversity imbalance, having the same people in the room does not drive innovation to its full potential. There is more work to be done to push the boundaries of what the tech sector can achieve and diversity is certainly one area that can make a significant difference.”

In line with Cloudscene’s finding, Catalyst also recently reached a report showing that women hold only 5.8% of CEO positions across all S&P500 companies.

Pictured: Singtel CEO Chua Sock Koong