Gender diversity in Asia-Pacific: Too little of a good thing

Although women make up half the talent pool, they remain under-represented on corporate boards. Germany has been moving ahead under the leadership of Angela Merkel for close to a decade, and yet has not a single female chief executive sitting in its top 30 largest companies. Closer to home, South Korea has been under the leadership of a female president since 2013 but many top Korean conglomerates still do not have a female director sitting on their boards.

As always, the most pressing imperative for businesses is the quest for growth. The dynamics of the business world are becoming increasingly complex with the shift of focus from local to global footprints, and with companies trying to wade through multi-dimensional challenges. Thus, boardroom composition and progressive rebalancing of capabilities within the board has become essential to experience success. Boards need, and must have, a diverse range of experiences and expertise to successfully navigate the future of the companies they serve and to that end, it becomes vital for them to draw talent from the largest possible pool of candidates.

With efforts being made by governments and organisations, we see a change in pace to have more gender diverse boards but it seems to be progressing at a glacial pace. While we understand that there is a general tendency for people to gravitate towards the familiar, we need to be cognisant of the fact that "group think" occurs when people with similar backgrounds band together to make decisions. Businesses today have clients and customers from very diverse backgrounds and will benefit from boards that reflect the true nature of the world that we live in today.