With 15 percent of female CEOs, Singapore is on par with Italy, topping the CEO gender diversity chart globally, a report by Credit Suisse reveals.  

Singapore and Italy together hold the top positions for CEO gender diversity, based on Credit Suisse Research Institute (CSRI)'s third CS Gender 3000 report: «The CS Gender 3000 in 2019: The changing face of companies». The report also highlights that female representation on boards globally has doubled in a decade; with the proportion of women in management higher in the U.S. and APAC (excluding Japan) than in Europe.

It reaffirms earlier findings that a material correlation exists between companies with higher participation of women in decision-making roles and their stock market and corporate performance, the financial institution said.

Key highlights for Singapore:

  • Singapore is ranked #4 globally in terms of female CFO representation, scored highly at 28%.
  • In Singapore, boardroom diversity has improved noticeably since 2015. The ratio of women on boards rose from 10.8% in 2015 to 18.4% in 2019, up 7.6 percentage points.
  • For gender diversity in management, Singapore is ranked #6 globally, with female representation in management stood at 23%.

Women on Boards Globally, Doubled

The percentage of women on boards globally now stands at 20.6%, doubling since the start of the decade and risen from around 15.3% since the last report in 2016. The experience across geographies does vary considerably. Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) has seen a small upward trend in gender diversity in the boardroom, rising to 14.4% in 2019 from 11.6% in 2015. Other key findings include:

  • The country-by-country range is considerable, stretching from 3.1% in South Korea to nearly 30% in Vietnam and Australia/New Zealand.
  • Three APAC countries – South Korea (3.1%), Pakistan (5.5%) and Japan (5.7%) – occupied the last three positions globally. 
  • Europe leads the regional table with an average of 29.7%, driven by the greatest tailwind of policies and initiatives seeking to address gender diversity within supervisory boards.
  • North America has arguably seen the most significant improvements without formal regulatory pressure, with board representation rising from 17.3% in 2015 to now close to 24.7%. This sharp uptrend of improvement in North America has not been mirrored in South America, which has seen an only gradual improvement to 7.8%.