According to Deloitte Global’s eighth edition of Women in the Boardroom: A Global Perspective, women hold less than a quarter (23.3%) of board seats globally, a 3.6 percentage point increase since the report’s last edition was published in 2022.

While the number of women serving on boards globally and in Southeast Asia has been growing, gender parity is unlikely to be achieved before 2038. In addition, there is no clear path to gender parity in the board chair or Chief Executive Officer (CEO) role.

For parity to become a reality, a wide range of stakeholders would need to devote greater focus and action to help corporate boards more accurately reflect the societies in which they operate, and boards themselves would need to continue to take action and ask the right questions.

The latest edition of the report analyzed more than 18,000 companies in 50 countries and geographies, exploring representation of women in the boardroom, as well as insights on the political, social, and legislative trends behind these numbers.

“The business case for diversity is clear: companies with more diverse boards have shown that they tend to perform better financially. Despite that, it is clear that a tangible increase in momentum is needed to reach gender parity in the boardroom. With women currently still underrepresented on company boards globally, that step-change in momentum will require organizations and investors to do more to realize the benefits that diverse boards can bring,” said Anna Marks, Deloitte Global Chair.

Government action is making an impact

Government action has yielded results in advancing parity at the board level. For instance, five of the top six countries with the highest percentage of women serving on boards in the study have some sort of quota legislation, ranging from around 33% (Belgium and the Netherlands) to 40% (France, Norway, and Italy). But quotas are not the only vehicle for progress. Continued government initiatives, such as the use of targets and disclosures, have also driven progress.

For example, in the UK and Australia, women now hold more than a third of board seats. While there is no magic number of board seats an individual director should hold, the geography-level data shows that the movement to increase gender diversity on boards has not caused “overboarding” as some may have feared.

However, government action alone is likely insufficient to reach parity. Stakeholders, including investors, should remain vigilant in setting expectations around gender diversity, despite the number of matters competing for investor attention.

Steady progress in women’s representation on boards in Southeast Asia

In Southeast Asia, countries in the region are making steady progress, with an increase in the percentage of board seats held by women – from 17.1% in 2021 to 19.9% in 2023 – a 2.8 percentage point uptick.

In the region, Malaysia takes the lead in terms of the percentage of board seats held by women (28.5%), driven by initiatives such as the “one woman on board” quota for listed companies. Although listed companies in Malaysia have yet to meet the target of 30% women directors set in the Malaysian Code on Corporate Governance, there has been commendable headway in women’s representation in Malaysian boardrooms.

Singapore’s 20.8% of board seats held by women trails the global average of 23.3%, although it surpasses the Asia Pacific average of 14.8% and Southeast Asia average of 19.9%. This is an increase of 3.2 percentage points, which is higher than the overall increase in Southeast Asia.

This finding also runs in parallel to the 2.3 percentage point increase in the number of board chairs in Singapore who are women – the city-state’s 8.3% of board chairs who are women is almost on par with the global average of 8.4% and exceeds the Asia Pacific average of 6.9%.

The Philippines is tied with Singapore with 8.3% of female board chairs, although the former has marked a higher percentage point growth of 3.7 from 2021 as compared to Singapore’s 2.3.

Although percentage growth has been reflected across all the key metrics, there are exceptions. The percentage of women as board chairs in Malaysia (6.2%) and the percentage of female CEOs in Singapore (11.9%) in 2023 are a decrease of 0.3 and 1.2 percentage points respectively from 2021. This serves as a reminder that more needs to be done to advance gender parity in leadership.

Seah Gek Choo, Boardroom Program Leader, Deloitte Southeast Asia and Singapore, said: “We are seeing heartening progress towards workplace diversity in Southeast Asia. The percentage increases in terms of representation of women on boards and women anchoring senior leadership positions – whether as Chairs or CEOs – is commendable. 

“While many countries in the region do not have legal requirements or quotas for the number of women on boards, this upward trend indicates a growing recognition of the positive impact of gender diversity in the boardroom, which is especially important as organizations respond to new and evolving business challenges. Over time, I look forward to seeing such positive change snowball and accelerate in the region. 

“In Singapore, the growing number of women leaders in the country’s boardrooms is a testament to the commitment and efforts toward promoting gender parity and diversity in leadership and the workforce. While this progress is inspiring, the drop in percentage of women Chief Executive Officers reminds us that the journey toward transformation is hard-fought and ongoing. 

“While the Code of Corporate Governance and other regulatory efforts in Singapore play a role in enabling companies to embrace greater diversity on boards, for organizations to achieve parity, a shift towards prioritizing leadership diversity both within and outside the boardroom needs to take place.” 

Among Chair and CEO roles, the glass ceiling seems impenetrable

While quotas and targets may help diversify boards, they do not seem to have the same effect on chair and CEO roles. Globally, the percentage of women chairing boards is nearly three times lower than the percentage of women serving on boards, with just 8.4% of the world’s boards being chaired by women. Within Southeast Asia, the average figure stands at only 7.4%.

When it comes to the highest executive roles, women’s representation drops even further: only 6% of CEOs in the world are women, representing just a 1% increase from our previous edition. Encouragingly, countries in Southeast Asia generally reported an increase in the percentage representation of female CEOs between 2021 to 2023, with the exception of Singapore. At the current rate of change, global parity for CEOs would not be reached before 2111 – almost 90 years from now.

Since many companies prefer to recruit board members with CEO experience, these numbers do not paint an optimistic outlook for pipeline development. Companies should expand their skills profile requirements to further diversify their boards and shore up critical skill gaps, and build the pipeline of future women leaders so that progress can be sustained and enhanced into the future.

Seah said: “The promotion of targets for gender diversity could help accelerate the push for gender parity, although targets only showcase one aspect of a more complex picture. The ecosystem as a whole – businesses, governments, civil society, and individuals – needs to recognize the continued efforts behind the scenes that go towards supporting the needs of women at home and in the workplace. It is critical to empower women to take on leadership positions by putting in place flexible work policies and access to opportunities through training and mentoring programs.” 

Marks said: “Today, board agendas are more packed than ever before – and the challenges and emerging areas boards need to keep abreast of are only increasing. As organizations aim to build more equitable and balanced boardrooms and C-suites, with real diversity of thought, directors need to remain focused on gender parity to advance progress. 

“Business leaders across markets should commit to collaborating on these matters; sharing their challenges as well as their successes, having the courage to ask difficult questions, and doing their part to help accelerate the timeline for achieving gender parity in the world’s boardrooms and C-suites.”

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