Women are breaking into Singapore boardrooms at a record pace.
At the 100 largest companies listed on Singapore’s stock exchange, 36% of board appointments went to women in 2022, a record high and up from 23% in 2021, according to an annual study by the Council for Board Diversity.
The influx of women follows new rules that require Singapore listed companies to say more about their board diversity policies. Starting from 2022, firms have to disclose their diversity targets, plans, timelines and progress in their annual reports.
By the end of 2022, 21.5% of director roles were held by women, up from 18.9% at end 2021, the CBD report found. Still, Singapore companies remain behind their developed-market peers. Women made up more than 30% of the board members of MSCI World Index companies in 2022, according to an MSCI Inc. study released Thursday.
Other gaps remain. More than 90% of Singapore’s boards are chaired by men, the CBD report found. And just 7% of the top 100 companies had gender-balanced boards, which is defined as having 40% to 60% of men or women.
The influx of women into boardrooms shows Singapore is moving in the right direction, said Mak Yuen Teen, a professor at the National University of Singapore, who researches corporate governance. But the fact that there’re still relatively few leadership positions for women on boards “suggests that relatively less experienced female candidates are appointed to boards at the moment and there may be a degree of tokenism.”
Singapore’s “talent pool” of women directors is growing, the report noted. Of all first-time directors appointed to the top 100 companies, women made up 45%, compared with 25% to 30% previously.
Directors have to be appointed on merit and growing the talent pool of female directors in Singapore will take time, said El’fred Boo, an associate professor who studies corporate governance at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
