Gender-balanced boards: Singapore has to work harder to catch up with peers

SINGAPORE's progressive agenda to get more women into the boardroom has followed a calculated pace with positive results, particularly in the past five years.

But the state of play in the city state's gender-balanced goal for boards has always had two sides - the good and the bad. Most encouragingly, women are filling up more board seats despite the absence of a legal mechanism.

To be sure, Singapore's efforts to narrow the gender gap in boards have unfolded amid an international push for board diversity given overwhelming evidence of its merits on businesses' financial metrics and governance.