Standard Bank Mozambique has disclosed that women currently occupy more than four in every ten management positions at the institution, a result the bank says reflects the creation of concrete opportunities for female leadership and growing participation by women in decision-making processes.
The information was presented on Wednesday in Maputo by Alice Parsotamo, a representative of Standard Bank Mozambique, at the 4th edition of the Women in the Economy Conference, organised by the Foundation for Community Development (FDC). "Looking at Standard Bank, more than four in every ten management positions are today held by women," Parsotamo said, emphasising that this presence translates into effective responsibilities within the institution.
"For us, it means that women have real opportunities, and increasingly so. It means we have women leading teams, accountable for results, managing resources, influencing decisions across different areas of the bank, and pulling more women up with them," she explained.
Parsotamo also noted that Standard Bank has invested in training and development programmes directed at women through its business incubator and other initiatives covering financial literacy, leadership, business capacity-building, and the promotion of visibility for women in leadership roles. "We seek to expand the capacity to decide, to entrepreneurship, to grow, and to open pathways for women," she said.
Parsotamo argued, however, that the presence of women in management roles must be accompanied by broader preparation of girls and young women for the changes set to reshape the labour market in the coming years.
According to her, natural gas, energy, infrastructure, and digital transformation are expected to create new professions, businesses, and value chains, requiring skills that are not yet sufficiently developed in the country. "The economy in which we work today will not be the same one in which the next generation will compete," she warned.
Parsotamo noted that technological transformations, including advances in generative artificial intelligence, are expected to alter many existing tasks and professions, making it necessary to more closely align education and training with the real needs of the economy. Citing data from the International Labour Organization, she stated that predominantly female occupations face a 29% exposure to generative artificial intelligence, compared with 16% for other occupations.
In her view, these figures reinforce the need to anticipate change and ensure that more women are prepared to enter, remain, advance, and participate in decision-making within the sectors that will determine the country's economic future. Parsotamo also argued that Mozambique's effective development will depend on coordinated action among public institutions, companies, academia, civil society, and other entities, so as to translate debates about women's inclusion into concrete proposals and decisions.
She invoked the example of a young woman who may today be sitting in a classroom in Pemba, Mocuba, or Xibuto and, in the future, head a technical unit linked to an energy project. "Perhaps the engineer who in ten years will lead the technical unit on an energy project is today in a classroom in Pemba, Mocuba, or Xibuto. Perhaps the entrepreneur who will supply technology or services to one of the major projects in the next decade is now testing her first idea," she said.
She added that decisions taken today must create conditions for the next generation of women to find real opportunities for participation, leadership, and growth across all sectors of the economy. "When the future audits such proposals and decisions, may it find women leading projects, companies with scale, and a new generation convinced that no sector of the economy is closed to them," she said.
The 4th edition of the Women in the Economy Conference is taking place in Maputo, bringing together representatives from government, the private sector, academia, civil society, and institutions in the energy, technology, and development sectors. Panel discussions featured Emília Nhalevilo, rector of Púnguè University; Elma dos Santos, a reservoir engineering specialist; Djamila Carvalho, a specialist in international development and resource mobilisation; Rudêncio Morais, chairman of the board of ENH; Edna Simbine, local content manager at TotalEnergies; and Shelzia Mucavele, CEO of Rovuma Tech, Lda.
Organised under the theme "Training, Leadership and Local Content: Empowering Women to Access, Compete and Lead in the Strategic Sectors of the Economy", the conference seeks to deepen debate on the conditions needed to make women's economic participation more effective and lasting.
Source: Diário Económico
Original article: https://www.diarioeconomico.co.mz/2026/08/05/economia/banca/standard-bank-destaca-mulheres-em-mais-de-40-das-posicoes-de-gestao/
