A top female neurosurgeon recently recounted how she got a surprised reaction from new patients who were expecting a man. Such an assumption is common in career fields dominated by men.

Specialised finance positions such as actuary and investment bank, engineering, architecture and medicine—these jobs where Kenyan women are making steady inroads.

This was well reflected in the survey that gave birth to this year’s Top 40 Under 40 women awardees.

About that 35 percent of the women who emerged top came from the fields of finance, engineering and medicine.

This indicates a slow shift from the previous Top 40 under 40 women awardees who were most from professions such as marketing, law and human resources

In those early days, the awards saw doctors, but notably general practitioners.

A close look at this year’s profile reveals the stable rise of smart women who can stand on their own and make an impact in segments of the economy that are male dominated and in advanced nations like the United Kingdom.

On the list are women in specialised medical spaces like endocrinologist, neurosurgeon and hematopathologist.

We also have chemical process engineers in top firms like Rolls Royce in the UK, a nuclear scientist, technology geeks and aerospace engineers.

As has been the tradition of the Top 40 Under 40 awards, the selection process kept the spirit and the faith of survey of unearthing unknown gems across industries and resisting the pull of making an annual parade of the best known.

It took the judges four sessions lasting hours to sift through the 1,998 entries, interrogating at least 387 of them, probing their backgrounds and comparing each with competing candidate’s ahead of emerging with the final list.

The writers verified each candidate’s age, while dropping some at the last minute on failure to meet the criteria as they interrogated the information provided in the nomination forms.

At the end of it, a list emerged that represents the evolving face of corporate Kenya: the growing number of women sitting in the C-suite of top firms like Safaricom and East Africa Breweries Limited.