Singapore posts highest percentage of women CEOs globally: Deloitte

SINGAPORE has taken the top spot globally when it comes to the percentage of chief executive officer (CEO) roles held by women, according to a new Deloitte report.

Out of 99 unique companies in Singapore sampled, 13.1 per cent had female CEOs. This was higher than the 9.9 per cent recorded in 2018.

However, the number of women who are chief financial officers (CFOs) has dropped to 33.7 per cent in 2021, from 35.3 per cent in 2018.

When it comes to female board representation, the percentage of board members who were female rose to 17.6 per cent in 2021, higher than the 13.7 per cent recorded in 2018. 

Out of 837 total board seats in the dataset, 147 were occupied by females. But some of those seats would have been occupied by women holding more than one directorship. Counting only unique individuals who held board seats, there were 119 females among the sample of 101 companies in Singapore analysed by Deloitte.

When it comes to board chairs which are women, the number has risen slightly to 6 per cent in 2021 compared with 5.8 per cent in 2018. The total number of female board chairs stands at 100 for 2021. 

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The technology, media and telecommunications industries have the most women on boards at 22 per cent, followed by financial services (19.3 per cent) and consumer business (15 per cent).

South-east Asian companies have collectively fared better with an average of 17.1 per cent of women in board seats compared with 14.3 per cent in 2018. This outperforms the Asia average of 11.7 per cent and nears the global average of 19.7 per cent.

Although the region has seen improvements in women board representation, the perception and perhaps acceptance of women assuming top leadership positions in boards are "significantly varied across geographies", said Deloitte.

Indonesia fell by 2.4 per cent, while Malaysia and Thailand reported an improvement of 2.6 per cent and 1.2 per cent respectively.

When it comes to the average tenure of women on boards, Singapore saw the sharpest decrease in 2021, dropping to 4.4 years from 5 years. Malaysia and the Philippines also saw a drop in average tenure. Deloitte noted that this could be due to the wider pool of women candidates in these countries given that the overall women participation on boards has increased.

When it comes to women CEOs, the next South-east Asian country to perform well globally is Thailand (11.6 per cent), taking the third spot globally.

Deloitte’s analysis covers Asia-Pacific, the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The study is based on a dataset covering 10,493 companies in 51 countries and more than 176,340 directorships. The dataset for Deloitte’s analysis was provided by MSCI ESG Research.