More female leaders, but tokenism a concern

Singapore

MORE businesses in Singapore are ticking the "diversity" box to avoid an all-male management team, but concerns mount on whether there is real progress made on gender diversity.

It was revealed that 78 per cent of businesses here have at least one woman on the senior management team, up from 64 per cent in 2017, according to the annual Women in Business report by consultancy Grant Thornton International released on International Women's Day.

Yet, the proportion of the team that is female held steady at 30 per cent - this means that firms with women already holding senior roles did not build on their lead.

But Singapore still fared better compared to its global counterparts.

Globally, the percentage of companies with at least one woman on the senior management team jumped to 75 per cent in 2018 from 66 per cent a year ago. However, the proportion of the team that is female dipped one percentage point to …