- Women remain underrepresented in Sacco boardrooms despite gradual gains
- Female leadership grows stronger in executive positions across the sector
- Gender representation varies sharply between board and management roles
Women hold barely a quarter of Sacco board seats in Kenya, even as more women now lead Saccos as chief executives than ever before.
That is the picture painted by the Sacco Societies Regulatory Authority (SASRA) in its Sacco Supervision Annual Report, 2025, which set out how gender is distributed across every layer of Sacco leadership. From the boardroom to the corner office, the data shows a sector making uneven progress: strong gains at the very top, but a persistent and stubborn gap everywhere else.
Kenya’s constitution requires that no more than two-thirds of members of any elective body come from one gender, leaving a one-third threshold for the other. Sacco boards fall well short of that mark.
A total of 3,047 people sat on the boards of Kenya’s regulated Saccos in 2025, up from 3,019 the year before. Of these, only 777 were women, a share of just 25.50 percent. Men held the remaining 2,270 seats, or 74.50 percent.
The gap is widest among deposit-taking Saccos (DT-Saccos), the larger and more complex institutions in the sector. Women held only 338 of the 1,563 board seats there, a proportion of 21.63 percent, virtually unchanged from 2024. Non-withdrawable deposit-taking Saccos (NWDT-Saccos), by contrast, performed somewhat better, with women holding 439 of 1,484 seats, or 29.58 percent.
There is, however, a flicker of momentum. Female board membership grew by 1.17 percent in 2025, outpacing the 0.84 percent growth recorded among men. SASRA said Saccos should build on this trend to close the gap with the constitutional threshold.
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Beyond ordinary board membership, Saccos elect a Committee of Office Bearers made up of the chairperson, vice chairperson, secretary and treasurer. Nowhere is the gender gap starker than in the chairperson’s seat.
Among DT-Saccos, men held 165 of 179 chairperson positions in 2025, or 92.18 percent, leaving women with just 14 seats, a mere 7.82 percent. NWDT-Saccos fared only slightly better, with women holding 19 of 177 chairperson roles, or 10.73 percent, actually a decline from 11.24 percent in 2024.
The vice chairperson’s seat tells a similar story, though the picture is moving in opposite directions across the two segments. Female representation among DT-Saccos vice chairs fell sharply, from 18.39 percent in 2024 to just 13.71 percent in 2025. Among NWDT-Saccos, the female share dipped only marginally, from 27.91 percent to 26.40 percent.
The secretary’s role, however, tells a strikingly different story. Among NWDT-Saccos, men and women held the position in exact parity in 2025, with 89 seats apiece, a 50 percent split. It is the only leadership category anywhere in the sector where women have reached full parity with men.
DT-Saccos lag behind on this measure too, though the gap is narrower than elsewhere. Women held 56 of 174 secretary positions, or 32.18 percent, up from 27.27 percent in 2024.
The treasurer’s office shows a similarly moderate pattern. Female representation among DT-Saccos slipped slightly, from 19.53 percent in 2024 to 18.97 percent in 2025. Among NWDT-Saccos, however, it rose from 23.86 percent to 26.97 percent over the same period.
SASRA noted that the data hints at a subtle bias: women appear more frequently elected to secretary or treasurer roles than to the chairperson’s seat, the most visible and powerful position on the board.
Every regulated Sacco also elects a three member Supervisory Committee, a uniquely cooperative institution tasked with auditing the board’s work. A total of 1,062 people served on these committees in 2025, out of an expected 1,071, with the shortfall attributed to casual vacancies awaiting the next general meeting.
Female representation on Supervisory Committees rose to 29.70 percent in 2025, up from 29.30 percent the year before, continuing a gradual upward trend. As with the board, NWDT-Saccos led the way, with women holding 33.27 percent of seats, compared with 26.14 percent among DT-Saccos.
If there is one clear bright spot in the data, it is at the very top of Sacco management. Female chief executive officers now account for 36.90 percent of all Sacco bosses, up from 33.33 percent in 2024, the largest single year jump recorded anywhere in the governance data.
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NWDT-Saccos are leading this shift decisively, with women holding 45.14 percent of chief executive positions in 2025, up from 43.21 percent the year before. DT-Saccos remain further behind, with women accounting for just 29.05 percent of chief executives in that segment.
Below the chief executive sits a layer of functional heads running departments such as finance, credit, internal audit, ICT and money laundering compliance. Here, the numbers moved slightly in the wrong direction for women. Female representation in these senior roles fell to 42.75 percent in 2025, from 43.72 percent in 2024, while the male share rose correspondingly to 57.25 percent.
The pattern again varies by segment. Among DT-Saccos, men dominate senior management more heavily, holding 60.90 percent of these posts in 2025, up from 60.02 percent. NWDT-Saccos are far closer to balance, with women holding 50.39 percent of senior management roles, though this too slipped slightly from 53.33 percent in 2024.
By Benedict Aoya
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