ABAC Women's Forum Lunch

Thank you so much to ABAC and the indefatigable Pearly Chen for co-hosting today's 30% club Lunch on the topic of women on boards. 30% Club attending including Tim Freshwater, Tim Payne, Teresa Ko, Ron Lee, Sanjeev Chatrath and Denise Jong.

Excerpt of Su-Mei's remarks

We're also thrilled to have May Tan today, who may be the busiest female NED in Hong Kong - as CEO of Standard Chartered Bank, board positions with the Link REIT and many regulatory advisory and statutory bodies. The Link REIT board went from zero to four female NEDs in just two years and I know the Link REIT are very proud of the fact that the majority of their female candidates were first time listed company directors. So - let's start with the hopeful proposition that where there is a will, there is a way!

Unfortunately - the example of the Link REIT is somewhat of an anomaly in the corporate landscape in Hong Kong. Women continue to be under-represented on Hong Kong corporate boards and this is why in 2013, I founded the 30% Club, a group of chairmen and senior business leaders who are commited to getting more women onto Hong Kong corporate boards. The Club's objectives are to raise awareness of the benefits of gender diversity, inspire debate and promote initiatives to build the pipeline of women for executive and non executive roles, with the overall aim of moving the needle on the current rather depressing statistics which show that 40% of Hong Kong listed issuers have no women on their boards at all and the next 37% have just one woman director. Women make up just 10% of all directors of listed issuers in Hong Kong and there has been no improvement over the last five years. 

Addressing the imbalance is important, not just because of the principles of fairness and equal opportunity, but also because it's bad business. Numerous studies have demonstrated a positive correlation between gender diversity on boards and more effective decision making, stronger corporate governance and companies being better able to target female consumers. 

Perhaps despite our name, what the Club is NOT about a call for quotas or hard targets. We encourage companies to set their own aspirational target for gender diversity and to consider diversity as it applies to their particular context and circumstances. We don't think quotas imposed by regulators are the answer because what we're after is voluntary-led change which is much more sustainable. We also believe that the best person, man or woman, should get the job when a board opening comes up. This is not about taking a woman for the sake of having a woman on board. However, research shows that women are consistently overlooked for board positions for reasons ranging from women not leaning in sufficiently when opportunities arise to persistent gender biases about the leadership aptitude of women to nominating committees of boards not operating in a sufficiently transparent or rigorous manner in terms of formally reviewing, identifying and disclosing the mix of skills, experiences and other qualities they look for in their board make-up, or the procedures used to ensure a diverse range of candidates are being considered for new board appointments. Companies need to be more open to engaging professional search firms and external experts to help on this front. There is also we think an unnecessarily rigid divide between the for profit and non profit sector - there are many talented women serving on non profit boards and committees - a greater willingness to cross pollinate talent across the profit and non profit divide would add significantly to the pool of female board-ready talent. 

At TWF, we don't regard the topic of women on boards as a narrow issue just affecting the female professional elite - it's about women having a voice in the critical business, economic and social issues affecting Hong Kong. 

28
01
2015

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