More women on boards of Singapore’s listcos, but 13 remain all-male

IN ITS mid-year update unveiled on Thursday (Aug 31), the Council for Board Diversity (CBD) said that women’s participation on the boards of the 100 largest listed companies on the Singapore Exchange (SGX) stood at 22.7 per cent as at June this year.

This is up from 21.5 per cent at the end of 2022, and closer to the CBD’s voluntary target of 25 per cent by 2025 for the sector. 

The number of women on the boards of the 100 largest listed companies has been on the uptrend over the last few years, rising from 15.2 per cent in end-2018 to 18.9 per cent in end-2021.

However, 13 of the top 100 companies continue to be led by all-male boards as at June 2023. Some of these companies include Hotel Properties, PropNex and UOB Kay Hian.

The council attributed the overall uptick in board diversity to, among other things, recent regulatory amendments by SGX to promote board diversity as well as global shifts in the business environments, including the recognition of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in creating enterprise value.  

While the figures are encouraging, President Halimah Yacob, who is the council’s patron, said that the work is not complete.

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“We must go deeper in terms of the different committees that companies have, whether its the nominating commitee or audit commitee, the appointments are still rather thin,” said Halimah, who was speaking at a fireside chat with Minister of State for Social and Family Development Sun Xueling, at CBD’s fifth anniversary event where the latest board gender diversity statistics were unveiled.

Halimah, who was at one of her last public engagements as president before Singapore goes to the polls on Friday, shared that the Council of Presidential Advisers (CPA) were made up of all men when she first took on the role in 2017.

She made a deliberate effort to have more women sit on the CPA, by appointing women to replace members whose term has expired.

There are now three women on the CPA: CBD’s co-chair and chairperson of the Totalisator Board Mildred Tan, senior adviser and former chief executive officer of Singtel Chua Sock Koong, and veteran social worker Sudha Nair.

“This is where I appreciate the diversity of views... Having the voices of women, listening to them, articulating their views and concerns, asking questions are also very important,” said Halimah.

This diversity of experiences would be crucial for companies responding to various disruptions, she noted.

Despite the progress made, Singapore still lags behind other markets in terms of women’s participation on boards.

Women participation on boards in Malaysia stood at 30.6 per cent, while the United States had a participation rate of 33.3 per cent and New Zealand at 36.5 per cent, according to data from CBD.

Halimah acknowledged it is not easy for companies, given that many are family-owned that may have more traditional values about gender.

But she recognised that things are changing as new generations of leaders join companies’ boards, and companies professionalising the processes of making board appointments.

Given that many private companies have policies that prohibit their own employees from serving on boards of other companies, she said that women in management positions can start by joining boards of government statutory boards or charities to gain experience relating to governance.

The council also said that in the public sector, the proportion of women’s participation on the boards of statutory boards has reached 32 per cent, up from 23.3 per cent at end-2018. It was the first sector to meet its voluntary 30 per cent target in 2022. 

  Meanwhile, the 100 largest institutions of a public character, which is a status accorded to registered charities, continue to be just short of their 30 per cent target with 29.5 per cent of board seats held by women. This is an increase of two percentage points since 2018.