Corporate boards taking on more women in Singapore

However, it still lags behind the global average of board representation at 19%.

Singapore showed the second largest growth in the representation of women on executive boards both globally and Asia Pacific-wide in five years, according to a Refinitiv report. The average percentage of women on board nearly doubled to 15.2% in 2018 compared to 2014.

The city also has the second biggest representation of women executive members at 25.9%, edging up 3% over the last five years.

However, the country still lags behind the global average of board representation at 19%, which have surged 43% over 5 years. France showed the largest average share of women on board at 42.9%, whilst India saw the biggest rise at 93%.

The global percentage of women in the C-suite is just at 14%, with Malaysia recording the largest representation at 28.7%.

Asia recorded the fewest representation with only 9% of women on board, but it posted the second largest rise in women board representation over 5 years of 53%, only surpassed by Oceania at 58%.

Still, nearly half or 48% of companies worldwide do not have any women on their board, and almost three-fourths or 74% do not have any women at all in senior executive positions.

“The overall pool of women executives that feeds into the C-suite is still growing at a slower rate than the growth of women on company boards, not unexpected considering gender diversity board quotas are in place in several countries,” the report stated.