Women hold 18.3% of the 3,796 board seats at Singapore-listed firms as at Dec 31, 2024, up from 14.9% at end-2022, while the percentage of individual women directors has increased to 18.9% from 15.4% over the same period.
Both figures are record highs for the Singapore Directorship Report, a biennial analysis by the Singapore Institute of Directors (SID) and academics.
Of the 3,108 individual directors across 615 firms listed on the Singapore Exchange (SGX) as at end-2024, 587 (18.9%) are women, up from 503 (15.4%) at end-2022.
“The actual number and percentage of individual women directors on boards have been increasing since 2014 but at a gradual pace, making gender diversity an issue that boards need to continue to work on,” reads the sixth edition of SID’s report, released Nov 4.
Notwithstanding, when compared with figures from the inaugural report in 2014, the percentage of women serving on boards has almost doubled, note the authors.
Exactly 800 independent director (ID) seats were filled in 2023 and 2024 — nearly a quarter (24%) by women. Over the same two-year period, 113 women were appointed as first-time directors, making up 30.9% of debut appointees.
Of the board seats held by women directors, the largest percentage are ID appointments, at 21%.
See also: Fewer long-serving directors on SGX listcos with nine-year cap in place: SID
The percentage of women chairs has increased marginally to 8.5% in end-2024 from 7.5% in end-2022. Similarly, the percentage of women lead IDs remains small, moving to 10.3% in end-2024 from 6.4% in end-2022.
All-male boards
That said, close to a third (30.1%) of firms listed on the SGX still have all-male boards, as at end-2024. In particular, 36.5% of small-cap firms do not have any women directors, while only 6.5% of large-cap firms do not have any women on their boards.
The report defines small-caps as listed companies (listcos) with market capitalisation of under $300 million; the $1 million mark separates the mid-caps and the large-caps.
The percentage of firms with no women directors has continued to drop, according to SID’s report, from 56.1% in the 2014 edition to 30.1% in 2025.
Some 41.5% of listcos had all-male boards in the report’s 2023 edition, which provided a snapshot of listcos at end-2022.
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The first time that more than half of the boards had at least one woman director was in the report’s 2021 edition, at 52.7%. This has improved “significantly” in the 2025 edition, at 69.9% note the authors. “While the persistent efforts to improve gender diversity on boards have borne some fruit, there is still some way to go.”
Boards with women directors typically have only one (41%). Overall, only 29% of all boards have more than one woman director.
The highest number of women directors in any board is five. There are four such firms, as at end-2024, compared to three at end-2022.
Younger appointees
At 60 years old, the median age of the 3,796 individual directors has not changed significantly over the past two years.
Executive directors (EDs) and non-independent, non-executive directors (NI-NEDs) are generally younger, with the highest proportion of EDs (31.5%) and NI-NEDs (30.2%) in the 51-60 age group.
The percentage of directors under 60 years old is 64.0% for new appointees and 51.3% for longer-serving directors. This suggests a trend towards the appointment of younger directors in recent years, according to the report’s authors.
Moving from boilerplate statements
The Singapore Directorship Report examines the degree of compliance with key principles and provisions of the Singapore Code of Corporate Governance (revised in 2018) and the SGX Listing Rules that pertain to boards and directors.
The 2025 edition covers a total of 615 firms listed on SGX as at end-2024. This includes 569 companies, 24 REITs and 22 business trusts. The firms spanned 12 industry classifications.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore announced in May that it is planning a review of the Code of Corporate Governance to enhance corporate governance practices and disclosures.
Hence, for the first time, the latest edition includes “reflections on the possible directions that the revised CG Code could take” in a commentary following each chapter of SID’s 112-page report — “particularly on board independence, board renewal, director remuneration and board diversity”.
SID acknowledges that the overall representation of women directors in Singapore “remains relatively low”.
“For instance, in Australia, as at June 30, women held 39.3% of board seats among ASX 100 companies, with 38.1% on ASX 200 boards and 37.5% on ASX 300 companies. In contrast, the average representation of women on corporate boards across Southeast Asia in 2023 stood at 19.9%,” says SID, citing Deloitte’s Women in the Boardroom report from 2024.
Many boards now disclose some gender statistics and more often than not, a diversity policy. In encouraging boards to publish concrete trajectories rather than narrative statements, the hope is that disclosures “should move from boilerplate statements to measurable progress and impact”, says SID.
Central to this is the disclosure of board skill matrices, which is a requirement for companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. In May, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange introduced this into their corporate governance code.
Because the board skill matrix helps to explain the link between future strategy and the extent of capabilities and experiences required by boards to be effective, mapping the board’s current state of play gives it the ability to address the question of how it intends to tackle identified gaps through director recruitment or development, says SID.
“This will make the disclosure of hard targets more meaningful, especially in the context of board renewal, given the introduction of hard nine-year term limits for independent directors,” SID adds.
Tables and charts: SID
Read more from SID’s Singapore Directorship Report 2025:
Fewer long-serving directors on SGX listcos with nine-year cap in place: SID
