Two months after Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEx) introduced a new requirement to compel companies to diversify their boardrooms and include more women, change has come – but it has been far from perfect.
Fund company BlackRock conducted a study on 35 blue-chip companies to examine what changes have been implemented since the rule was introduced in September. The policy aims to ensure that board memberships will have more diversity in terms of gender, knowledge, age and background.
BlackRock’s study found that 13 per cent of the surveyed firms’ directors were women – a slight improvement from the average of 10 per cent in December last year.
HKEx itself has appointed one female director – former Hang Seng Bank chief executive Margaret Leung – since April, after it was named last year as among the 40 per cent of Hong Kong firms with all-male directors.
But that’s no cause for celebration: Hong Kong still lags behind other markets which have quotas on the number of female directors represented on the board. The United States requires 17 per cent; Britain requires 19 per cent; while seven European countries require 25 to 40 per cent.
While the White Collar is not a big fan of the quota system, it would be good for companies to set targets to include more women directors in the next few years. HSBC said on its website that it aims to see 25 per cent of board seats taken up by women by 2015 – and other corporations should follow suit.
The BlackRock study also showed that very few companies have disclosed their policies on how to diversify their boardrooms.