HKEx director Margaret Leung smashes the glass ceiling

A veteran banker and newly appointed director of the local bourse, Margaret Leung Ko May-yee has been breaking the glass ceiling that keeps women down for a while. And she wants more women join her in smashing it.

Leung made history in 2009 when she became the first female chief executive of Hang Seng Bank. In 2005, she was the first Chinese woman to make it to the position of HSBC group general manager.

She retired from her 37-year banking career a year ago and recently accepted an appointment from the government to be a director of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, the operator of the stock and futures markets. While many consider this an encouraging sign for more women on boards, she says it is not enough.

"Now I am the only female on the 13-member exchange board. So it is one woman with 12 men. Before me, there have only been two women directors of the HKEx. In Hong Kong as a whole, only about one in 10 directors are women. This is too low when you consider that we have an almost equal number of male and females in the world as well as in the workplace," Leung said in an interview with the South China Morning Post.

"More should be done by the government and the exchange to encourage companies to promote women to top executive positions and to boards of directors," she said.