OREANDA-NEWS. April 17, 2015. Singapore’s Diversity Action Committee (DAC)[1] said that the number of directorships (board seats) held by women rose 10% to 448 in 2014 from 406 in 2013.  There was a net increase of 42 women directorships, making up a significant 25% of the total increase in directorships of 166 in the year.  Appointments and new listings grew the pool of women by 91, at the same time, 49 stepped down from their positions. Independent director roles had the greatest net increase in women directorships of 36; non-independent director roles increased by 6.

The findings showed that all in all women’s representation on SGX-listed company boards went up slightly to 8.8% as at end 2014 from 8.3% end 2013 and 8% end 2012. 

Improvements across Mainboard and Catalist companies

Women’s representation on boards was almost the same percentage across companies of different sizes. However, within the overall picture, an improvement was noticeable in large companies (market capitalisation larger than S\\$1b) and Catalist companies.  Women’s representation in large companies increased 1.5 percentage points to 8.7% and Catalist companies increased 1.4 percentage points to 8.6%.

For the leading 30 companies on the Straits Times Index (STI) women’s representation was only 7.6%, lower than the market as a whole, despite an increase of 1.0% from the previous year.

Improvements across Industry Groups

There were improvements in women’s representation across many of the industry groups.  The Media industry is notable as it showed a significant 16% in women directorships, the highest representation of women on boards.  For the remaining industries, female representation clustered between 6?11%.

Boards which only had men made up 55.5% of the 764 companies on SGX as at end 2014, as compared to 56.0% the year before.  Of this group of 424 companies, about 340 have been totally male for the past 3 years.  About 25% were in the Capital Goods industry and another 20% were attributed to Consumer Durables & Apparel, Consumer Services, Food & Staples Retailing, Retailing and Real Estate industries.

In addition, an international comparison with other financial markets showed that Singapore trails behind other markets, even though Singapore has a relatively large pool of well-educated senior women executives.

Magnus B?cker, Chairman of DAC, said, “The increased representation of women on boards of SGX listed companies is encouraging.  DAC has embarked on several initiatives working together with other organisations[2] to help companies look beyond traditional sources to bring diversity to listed companies.  Though we still have a long way to go, the findings support how a rising number of companies and their boards are taking steps to foster better governance and business performance with a more gender-diverse board.”  

The detailed findings[3] of women’s representation on boards as at end 2014 can be found in Annex 1 or at the DAC website (www.diversityaction.sg). 

More information about the Diversity Action Committee is attached in Annex 1

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Media Enquiries to Secretariat to Diversity Action Committee

Wendy Tan or Cheryl Tan

Tel :      +65 6713 6034

Email:   DAC_Secretariat@sgx.com


[1] The DAC is chaired by Mr Magnus B?cker, CEO of Singapore Exchange. Madam Halimah Yacob, Speaker of Parliament of Singapore is adviser to DAC.  The DAC, comprising business leaders from both large and small organisations and professionals from the private, people and public sectors, is appointed to build up the representation of women directors on boards of companies.
[2] such as Singapore Business Federation, BoardAgender, NUS Centre for Governance, Institutions and Organisations (CGIO), Securities Investors Association (Singapore) (SIAS), Singapore Institute of Directors (SID).
[3] Source: Handshakes. Data was collected from all SGX-listed companies’ annual reports and company announcements reported to SGX, up to 31 Dec 2014 (inclusive).  Data does not reflect any changes after 31 December 2014.