Unveiling the Impact of Women Directors’ Boardroom Representation, Compensation and Experience on Malaysian Consumer Sector Titans’ Returns Pre and Amidst COVID-19

<jats:p>Despite growing pressure for gender equality and inclusivity from government and society, the issues of under-representation of women on boards and pay inequality compared to their men comrades still continue in Malaysia, which can demotivate women directors and imperil corporate performance. An overall panel comprising 94 firm-year observations, derived from the top 25 Malaysian listed consumer products and services companies from 2018 to 2021 based on stock market capitalization, is utilized to examine whether the percentage of women directors (WDIR), the ratio of average women to men directors’ remuneration (WTMR), and the average age of women directors (WAAG) influence return on equity (ROE) and total shareholder return (TSR) before and during the Covid-19 era. Descriptive statistics affirm women directors in this sector are under-represented (mean WDIR 25.91%, below the government’s target of 30%) and underpaid (mean WTMR 0.3290, below gender remuneration equality level of 1). Cross-sectional random effect regression results show WDIR positively affects ROE, while cross-sectional fixed effect regression results reveal both WDIR and WTMR negatively impact TSR, which implies Malaysian stock market investors are still less confident towards companies that have appointed more women directors on their boards. Meanwhile, WAAG does not exert any significant influence on either ROE or TSR, which proves WAAG is not a good indicator of directors’ experiences. Potential implications from this paper include providing training programmes to develop more capable women corporate leaders, correcting gender stereotyping misperceptions through grassroots and capital market education as well as disclosing directors’ qualifications and experiences for investors to unprejudicially assess the capabilities of women directors. </jats:p>