“We were the first global exchange to announce the ending of single gender boards on a mandatory basis,” Chan said in her first media interview since taking up the top post on March 1. All companies listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange have until the end of this year to comply with the rule.
Even though the deadline is still a few months away, the compliance rate has significantly improved since the rule was introduced, she said, noting that the number of Hong Kong-listed companies with an all-male board has decreased to about 400 now, from 800 in 2022.
At present, only 17 per cent of listed companies do not have a single woman on board, compared with 40 per cent when the exchange introduced the rule that required all new listing candidates to have at least one woman on their boards at the time of going public.
09:30
HKEX Chief Executive Bonnie Chan on building a vibrant market in Hong Kong
HKEX Chief Executive Bonnie Chan on building a vibrant market in Hong Kong
Existing listed entities have to appoint at least one woman on their boards by the start of 2025.
“We are doing it not because I am the first female CEO [of the HKEX], but because it makes sense,” she said. “Diversity, whether it’s gender diversity or any other type of diversity, brings more ideas, more perspectives into boardroom discussions.”
While Hong Kong has made it mandatory to have at least one woman on a company board, it lags many markets including Norway, where at least 40 per cent of either gender sits on a listed company’s board.
In 2022, only 16 per cent of the directors in Hong Kong-listed companies were women, compared with 11 per cent in 2018.
Globally, only 12.9 per cent of the nearly 3,000 companies in the MSCI ACWI Index have 30 per cent of their boards comprising women. And only 4.3 per cent have women CEOs.
Chan believes gender diversity and other corporate governance improvements are vital to maintain the local stock market’s appeal to international investors.
“We are constantly looking to improve,” she said, adding that corporate governance is a “perpetual work in progress” where “one always wants to be better”.
HKEX last Friday issued a consultation paper seeking feedback on a plan to limit independent directorships to a maximum of six per person, with each tenure capped at nine years. The consultation is open until August 16.