Asia Inc improves gender diversity
Nearly all Hong Kong-listed companies have met a board diversity target coming into force this year, an indication that Asian regulators’ efforts toward diversity and inclusion are paying off even as such initiatives are being rolled back in the US.
Hong Kong in 2022 mandated that all listed companies have at least one female director on their board by January 1 2025. The proportion of all-male boards has dropped from 30% before the launch of the initiative to 1.3% as a result.
The number of board seats filled by women has grown by around 800 in the past three years, according to a spokesperson for Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing.
"The Hong Kong business community has widely supported gender diversity because it makes good business sense. Increasingly, companies here understand that diverse viewpoints enhance decision-making and risk management, with gender being a key factor in diversifying the perspectives of management teams and boards,” Katherine Ng, HKEx’s head of listing, told IFR via email.
Hong Kong is not alone. Singapore in 2022 mandated the disclosure of board diversity plans and targets. As of December 31, a quarter of the board members of the top 100 Singapore Exchange-listed companies by market capitalisation were women, a 10 percentage point increase from the end of 2018, according to Singapore’s Council for Board Diversity.
In 2023, the Tokyo Stock Exchange said domestic companies listed on the prime market should strive to have at least one female director by 2025 and increase the ratio of female directors to at least 30% by 2030. While more than 28% of companies in the prime market had 30%-female boards as of October 2023, 18.7% of prime-listed companies did not have any female directors, according to a TSE report.
In Australia, representation of women on ASX 300 boards reached 36% last year. Still, 13 ASX 300 boards had no female director as of January 2024.
Women at the top
Women who have reached the top jobs at Asian financial institutions and regulators are a driving force for change.
HKEx chief executive Bonnie Chan “has been very vocal to support women and push for at least one woman at every board in HK and this has been progressing really well,” Societe Generale’s APAC CEO Cecile Bartenieff said.
Chan, who took over as CEO in 2024, is the first woman to lead the city's bourse operator, although its chair for six years was Laura Cha until April 2024. Meanwhile, Julia Leung has been CEO of Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission since January 2023.
Asia's banking sector has several women in top jobs. In 2021, Helen Wong became the first woman to lead a Singaporean bank, when she was appointed CEO of Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. Singapore’s largest lender DBS Group will be led by a woman for the first time when deputy and former head of institutional banking Tan Su Shan takes over from Piyush Gupta later this month.
Citigroup’s Hong Kong and Taiwan offices are led by women, Aveline San and Christie Chang. Janie Wittey is CEO for Natixis CIB Australia.
JP Morgan’s Harshika Patel served as Hong Kong CEO before taking over as head of its private banking operations for Asia. Cathy Zhang, Morgan Stanley’s head of equity capital markets for Asia Pacific, has led the team solo since February 2023.
Beyond gender
Ee-Ching Tay, who leads investment banking for South-East Asia at Barclays, believes that, beyond gender balance, diversity in bankers' ranks is central to serving a varied client base and good for dealmaking.
“What’s unique about Asia is that it is as heterogeneous as it gets. It is far from homogeneous. Diversity cannot be just about gender. It is about culture, ethnicity, language,” she said. “Ultimately, we are most impactful when we have bankers that reflect the diversity of our client set.”
Societe Generale’s Bartenieff highlighted the importance of developing local talent throughout the organisation.
“Local clients speak a specific language – something that’s true everywhere in the world. It is important for us to be able to groom local talent who can grow their connections with clients, and who can evolve as our clients evolve,” she said.
“Not just at the entry level, but also at the top level. We’re keen to groom local talent for top management positions in locations that we operate in. It is not something that can be done overnight. It means identifying the people, training them, make sure they have exposure to the rest of the group in Europe and the US.”
In Asia, much of the investment banking activity is conducted through multicultural cities like Hong Kong and Singapore, where one hub needs to service clients from multiple countries.
“Hiring and grooming local talent has been core to banks in the region for years,” Barclays’ Tay said. “The goal for a global bank serving global clients is that our bankers should have global agility, meaning that you can groom talent in a way that you can deploy them anywhere in the world and it should work just as well because of the nature of our business.
“It is not just to serve local clients. A lot of times our deals are cross-border, so the banker needs to adapt,” Tay said.
Natixis' Wittey stressed the importance of global mobility within an organisation. "It is critical because you don't get homogenous thinking. Diversity of perspective is critical," she said. "Global banks that embrace that and do that well will serve their clients and communities in a better way than those that aren't thinking on those lines."
Spillover concerns
Meanwhile, there are some concerns that the US pull-back from diversity, equity and inclusion programmes under the current administration could have spillover effects in Asia. DEI for global organisations tends to be harder to define in Asia due to multicultural financial hubs and the high mobility of workforce within the region. Recruiters say most banks’ diversity targets in Asia tend to revolve around gender equality.
Some US banks have scrubbed language about DEI from annual reports, websites and internal messaging after US President Donald Trump’s order in January to end what he called “radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferencing”.
However, most believe that it would be short-sighted to abandon diversity objectives that took years to implement.
“The volume of alarm is understandable, but while businesses may need to re-label DEI efforts, many are doing all they can to avoid rolling back programs because a more diverse workforce is good for their business," said Tim Payne, principal at strategy consulting firm Kellaways and a board member at The Women’s Foundation in Hong Kong. “But it will significantly get worse if there is ongoing pressure from the administration.”
(Additional reporting by Morgan Davis)