All-male boards still present in 19 of Singapore's top 100 listcos: report

OF the 100 largest primary-listed companies on the Singapore Exchange (SGX), 19 did not have any female directors as at end-2019, according to the latest report by Singapore's Council for Board Diversity (CBD).

This is an improvement from 2013, when 50 of the companies had all-male boards.

"The significant decline in all-male boards indicates that the message of diversity is getting across to companies," CBD said on Wednesday.

However, it urged the remaining 19 companies to "start taking decisive action or risk being left behind". Most of these firms have never had a woman on their boards.

In contrast, there was one female director at close to 40 of the top 100 Singapore-listed firms as at the end of last year.

Meanwhile, 42 of the companies had two or more women on their boards - tripling from 14 in 2013. A few of these companies, namely Mapletree Commercial Trust, Singapore Telecommunications and Singapore Post, have at least four female directors each.

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Among the top 100 Singapore-listed companies, women's participation on boards stood at 16.2 per cent on average as at Dec 31, 2019, an improvement of one percentage point from the previous year, CBD said.