What sets Maybank apart is the extent to which diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) functions as a working system across its 18-country footprint rather than a set of head office commitments. Individual markets run their own programmes and the group holds them to common metrics.
The framework rests on six pillars – workforce representation, access to development, talent nurturing across life stages, benchmarked compensation, employee resource groups and community empowerment – and sits within the group’s wider ESG and people strategy, guided by the group inclusiveness and diversity framework. Progress is tracked through a People Dashboard the bank has maintained since 2009.
Representation is well ahead of regional norms. Women made up 56.5% of the workforce in 2025 and held 43% of management roles, above the 30% threshold Maybank applies across leadership levels. The succession data is telling: women accounted for 47% of successors identified for mission-critical positions and 44% of those in executive committee and sector head line-ups, several as first successors. Some 83% of senior management vacancies were filled internally.
Programmes with a delivery record
Disability inclusion is where the bank has gone furthest. A structured strategy spanning reasonable accommodation, advocacy, employment readiness, transition, wellbeing and community partnership is supported by a certified disability services team that arranges workplace adjustments and return-to-work plans.
The work placement programme has onboarded 163 trainees with disabilities since inception and is judged on conversion to permanent employment and long-term retention rather than intake alone. In Cambodia, four trainees joined across human capital, finance and technology in 2025, three of whom moved into external employment afterwards. Singapore ran disability awareness workshops for colleagues, while the group used its RISE event to showcase Braille, e-Braille and screen-reading tools.
The overall picture is of a regional programme with consistent intent in every market and enough local variation to be useful in each
Gender programmes follow the same distributed model. The Women Mentor Women council operates across Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia; its Lead-Her-Ship scheme paired eight council members with 16 women drawn from different sectors of the bank; and a Singapore session on managing career and life transitions drew more than 500 participants. Maybank Cambodia launched an emerging women leaders series, with 35 attending the first session.
Wellbeing and rights are handled as part of the same agenda. The group has 175 certified mental health first aiders, backed in Malaysia by the THRIVE counselling app; more than 4,000 employees took part in at least one mental health initiative and 10,624 responded to a group-wide pulse survey.
Over 9,500 staff are onboarded to mobile work arrangements, in place since 2020. More than 21,000 Maybankers completed the mandatory human rights e-learning module, and a salience assessment conducted with external advisers identified 16 priority issues, including conditions of work, gender pay gap and living wage, for targeted action. The bank reported full compliance in 2025 with the RM3,100-a-month ($761) living-wage benchmark in Malaysia.
The overall picture is of a regional programme with consistent intent in every market and enough local variation to be useful in each – supported, unusually, by pipeline and outcome data rather than statements of ambition.
